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| A view of a cute little town on the lake from the boat |
Well here I am at the end of what has been a fantastic weekend in Pavia. I was lucky enough on Friday to go to Lake Como for the day with Lizi! We set off at 9am and by 11 we had arrived in the small town of Como at the southern tip of the left ''upsideown Y'' of the famous Italian lake. We wandered into the center in the hope of seeing the lake, and from the first glimpse it was spectacular! We decided to start off our day in true Italian style by relaxing out in the sun with a coffee, only this time with an incredible view as well! I went for a cappuccino topped with whipped cream, and Lizi chose one with melted chocolate at the bottom! They were delicious, and I don't think there was a better way to start our day at the lake.
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| Our morning coffees! |
After our coffees, we set off to walk around the harbour-front and admire the views (which were plentiful!) and imagine that we were rich and owned speed-boats to whizz all over the lake! Coming back to reality, we decided to take a trip up to the small town of Brunate by the funicular which creeps up the hillside in 7 minutes. The town at the top was tiny and there were a few shops and cafes, as well as restaurants and bars, but the main reason why visitors are drawn is for the incredible views down onto the town of Como and the lake. Whilst we were up there, the temperature started to climb and soon we were chilled out sunbathing overlooking one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen in my life.
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| A view from Como's harbour |
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| A view onto the lake |
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| The funicular train |
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| A view from the hillside town of Brunate |
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| A view down onto the lake and the town of Como |
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| Us enjoying some sunbathing! |
By about 1pm we realised we were pretty hungry, so grabbed some lunch before heading off for a boat cruise around the lake (as you so often do when you're an Erasmus student!) haha. The cruise lasted an hour and only cost 7 euros so it was pretty good value I think! We stopped at a few different villages (Tavernola, Cernobbio, Moltrasio and Torno), but didn't actually get off the boat as we were on a 'tourist round trip', but I think you could get on and off if you had a full day open pass. Next time I'll make sure to do that so that I can visit all of the little cute Italian lake-side villages! The views were incredible though, they took my breath away, and the way the villages lit up in the afternoon sunlight was so picturesque.
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| A map of Como! |
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| The view of the lake and the towns all illuminated! |
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| The lake! |
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| Me on the boat! |
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| A view on the water |
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| The cute little village of Torno |
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| Moving on from Torno! |
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| Lizi enjoying the views! |
After our boat trip, we had an hour or so until we wanted to get some dinner so we wandered along the waterfront until we reached a little park which the guide book claims is set around the 'Tempio Voltiano' which is dedicated to Allesandro Volta who was a pioneer in electricity and gave his name to the volt. More interesting to us however were the beautiful views from the park which were incredible as the sun set over the lake.
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| The Tempio Voltiano |
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| Lizi and Me looking out onto the lake |
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| A view of the harbour of Como |
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| Lizi and Me by the harbour |
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| Me watching the sun set over the lake |
After watching the sunset, we decided it was time to find somewhere to have dinner, so we wandered off into the center of the small town of Como. Before looking at restaurants, the first thing that caught my eye was the Duomo in the center on the Piazza Duomo. It was a beautiful church which my guide book claims is 'Italy's best example of Gothic-Renaissance fusion'. It was very pretty, but however under restoration so we were unable to have a look inside. We had a look around the center's vast network of tiny narrow lanes before eventually deciding on a restaurant with outdoor seating on the main Piazza Cavour next to the lake. We both chose pasta dishes and shared a salad. After our meal we needed to head back to the train station to catch the last train back to Pavia, however we had some problems with the journey back due to one of the trains not actually being scheduled (We never did find out why). We ended up having to wait an hour at Milano Centrale for a train down to Pavia which then didn't get us into Pavia until midnight so it was a really long day.
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| The Piazza Duomo |
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| The facade of the Duomo |
Saturday started off being a lazy day as I had a long lie-in after Friday's trip to Lake Como, but then I decided to do some housework and get through some of my laundry. I put the washing machine on with a dark load, and then when that was dry I decided to hang it outside on the washing line overhanging the balcony as the Spanish and the Italians do. I have never been convinced of doing this as firstly everyone can see your laundry and secondly there is always the fear that it might blow off. Anyway, I hung it out and it was a good place to dry my sheets for example as they are large double sheets. I then went off to put a white load on, and started to clean the dining area. I kept taking little glances at the washing line to check that my laundry was still there, and so far there were no problems. A few minutes later after doing the washing up, I turned around once again to check and it wasn't there! All of my washing had blown off onto the balcony of the flat below! I kind of knew that was going to happen.... it was just fate. Then later on I was in my room doing something on the computer and suddenly I heard a gushing sound and water cascading down from something. I just thought that it sounded like a nice sound, but then fear flooded over me (flooded being the operative word!) and I ran to the bathroom skidding on the way to see water pouring out of the washing machine as the door had come unlocked. I literally had my own 'Lake Como' on the bathroom floor! The funny thing was though that the washing machine still continued it's cycle, so in order not to have an even bigger flood than I already had, I had to stand infront of it holding the door shut with my hands for nearly an hour. When the cycle finished, I pegged out the clothes (inside this time on the safe drying rack!) and set about mopping up the water which took about half an hour again and 2 full 'mop and bucket' sized buckets of water. I suppose you could say that the only good thing about the disaster was that the floor got a good clean! After all of this stress I took a nap, and then a few hours later I went into the center to meet Lizi, Malene and Stefanie. The chocolate festival which I mentioned in my previous blog was on, and the piazza was buzzing with people and there was a sweet chocolate smell in the air!
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| All of the stalls from the festival on the piazza |
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| The chocolate festival |
On Sunday morning Lizi and I met at midday to go to Esselunga the supermarket and stock up on a few items. We then went back to my place to have a large salad lunch with the nicest big red juicy sweet Italian tomatoes I'd ever tasted! After lunch we decided to go out to get some sunshine down by the river, but beforehand we stopped off at the chocolate festival with hopes for some tasting opportunities! We wandered around and were pretty lucky to try chocolate from many stalls including crystalised orange slices dipped in chocolate, Sicilian dark chocolate and a milk chocolate with nuts in the middle. Lizi also bought 2 packs of chocolate pasta (yes... you heard that right, CHOCOLATE PASTA!!) to use as presents. I'm hoping she'll tell me what it tastes like as I didn't want to buy any as I can't understand why anyone would want chocolate flavoured pasta! I wish they had been offering samples of that. Whilst walking around we also noticed so many novelty items made of chocolate which were incredible! Have you ever seen chocolate cameras/cheeses/shoes/mechanics' tools/fish/iphones??? If not, check out the pics below! I think my favourite had to be the shoes! They were just so pretty, but unaffordable! Lizi and I really wanted to try them but they were 23 euros, so decided instead on two little milk chocolate fish which were much much cheaper!
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| Me by the chocolate festival poster! |
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| The festival tents on the piazza during the day |
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| CHOCOLATE CAMERAS! |
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| CHOCOLATE CHEESE! (IT'S NOT REALLY CHEESE....... IT'S WHITE CHOCOLATE OF COURSE!) |
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| THE PRETTY CHOCOLATE SHOES! |
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| CLOSE-UP OF A CHOCOLATE SHOE |
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| Lizi wandering around the Piazza |
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| VERY REALISTIC 'RUSTIC LOOKING' CHOCOLATE MECHANICS TOOLS |
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| THE CHOCOLATE FISH |
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| Lizi and her chocolate pasta! |
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| THE CHOCOLATE IPHONES! |
After looking at so much chocolate, our mouths were watering so we walked for a few minutes down to the river to put out a towel and do some sunbathing and eat our chocolate fish before they melted! They were hollow in the middle, but had thick walls of lovely milk chocolate! I have to say that being a vegetarian, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to eating a fish =)
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| Lizi with her fishie! |
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| Me with mine! |
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| The beautiful Ponte Coperto |
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| Me sunbathing by the river |
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| Lizi and Me enjoying the sun! |
Right that's all from me and the update from my weekend! I'm off now to get ready to meet Laura one of my new Italian friends to go for an ice cream and a passeggiata (walk) by the river in the sunshine whilst having some Italian speaking practice! Oh 'La Vita Erasmus' is just too hard !!!!! Arrivederci xxx
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