Lake Como

As Dallan said, we kind of have a lot on our plates right now, so I'll make this quick...

Lake Como was awful. We didn't have any fun at all.

The food was kind of disappointing, especially the tiramisu!

The views were so so.

The little towns weren't very cute.

Don't go to Lake Como. Don't even bother looking at the rest of our pictures.

-Ashley

P.S. You got that I was kidding, right? We LOVED Lake Como. Everything was absolutely beautiful, and it was one of our favorite trips thus far. Oh, and the tiramisu... was AMAZING!!!!

Siena > Florence ... to be honest.

Ciao ragazzi! I know that it has been a while since we last posted anything about our travels, but we have excuses. Hopefully worthy excuses. As of late we've been fairly busy with several endeavors. For the next few weeks, Ashley and I will be hard at work on finishing up all components of our Graduate School Applications (which means a break from the BIGGER trips for a few weekends). All throughout November and early December we will be gone almost every weekend. Most trips will be outside Italy (Barcelona, Amsterdam, London/Paris, and hopefully Switzerland somewhere in between), but Rome may be saved for our big Thanksgiving weekend. We'll see ... booking trips (affordable trips!) seems to take FOREVER.

Because we are so pressed for time (and I kinda had to force myself to sit down and write this) I will make this as quick as possible. We have done a lot of awesome stuff in the past few weeks. To be completely honest, I tend to enjoy just spitting things out about our trips in a rapid fire sort of way. 'Tis Fun! So here we go:

Did some more exploring of Torino. We sat in Piazza San Carlo (favorite in Torino) and drank a Cappuccino & Marochino (a Chocolate/Coffee drink so rich and thick it turned Ashley's teeth brown ... see pic at TOP). Lots of walking. Went to Velentino Park (Torino's Central Park) and saw the 150 year old remake of a medieval village and castle. Little secret: I so wanted to buy a sword and helmet and just swing my wannabe Excalibur around the whole place ... no such luck. Let's move on. Saw a massive fountain (out of service) that was being worked on. Had statues of women for each month of the year. October (Mine and Ashley's Birthday month) had the largest breasts on a statue that we'd seen thus far in Italy. No joke. Funny nonetheless. Torino is also home to the largest open air market in Europe. It was huge and packed. Think local farmer's market + flee market + steroids and you pretty much get what I mean. The amount of produce and various other edible items was insane. I wanted to buy everything ... didn't buy anything (SEE ABOVE). Watched some old Italian guys play Bacce Ball in the Park and then went to watch Barca play at the Shamrock Pub later that night.

We had a big weekend in Florence. Expensive trains again. Stayed at a nice hostel named Ostello Archi Rossi. Everything in Florence is in walking distance. City had one of the better markets for souvenirs. Went to the Duomo (Above) = Big Pretty Church & Massive Dome = HUGE!!! We decided to walk to the top of the tower near the Duomo to get some good pictures.... like walking up stairs at home ... only 100 times over (400+ steps to be exact). Realized I was out of shape :). Got rained on. Walked the entire city. Got up early. Went to the Bargello museum. Once an old prison during the Renaissance. Full of sculptures. Saw Donatello's David (not the one by Michelangelo). Went to the Uffizi Gallery. Full of Renaissance paintings. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera were our favorite. After a while though, painting after painting (all of which were similar in theme) got a little boring. If you want to go to the Uffizi, take a guided tour or read an art history book prior. If that is not your cup of tea ... then GO TO SIENA!

Had reservations to see the David at the Accademia ... decided to go to Siena instead. We made the right choice. Siena was one of our favorite cities thus far. The city sits on top of a hill in Tuscany. The roads/streets are all stone. Il Campo, Siena's famous Piazza (Above), proved to be one of our favorite places in Italy thus far. Its home to the famous Palio di Siena, which is a dangerous horse race that takes place in the square annually. Siena's duomo was also beautiful. Walked around as the sun set. Got semi-lost (on purpose ... one of our favorite things to do I think). Ate dinner in Il Campo. I thanked Ashley for having made me go there. Best decision of the trip. All in all, Florence was a bit of a disappointment considering it was the home of Michelangelo & Da Vinci .... unless you are an art historian, 'tis just a tad bit boring if you ask us! Siena was amazing and I wish we could have spent more time there.

Next Ash will post about our Day trip to Lake Como, and then I'll write a little about our trip to the Piedmont countryside and the Alba Truffle Fair.
Until then, Ciao!

-Dallan

La Toilette

We noticed that we had started to write a lot about our traveling experiences and were forgetting to mention some of the random happenings and observations that occur on a daily basis. This particular post is about one of the more notable differences we have encountered since the beginning of our stay, la toilette (twah-let-tay).

*Warning*: If you are expecting the usual pictures of gorgeous landscapes or breathtaking architecture then you may want to stop now.

Oh, the lovely toilets in Italy. I have yet to travel outside of Italy, so I'm not sure if these beauties are found in the rest of Europe (my hunch says yes), but hopefully I can at least surprise those of you who have not traveled to Europe before.

I'll start with my favorite breed: floor toilet

Thankfully this is a pretty rare find. It seems like they can usually be found in old buildings. I won't go into a detailed description, I think the picture pretty much speaks for itself. But... I do want to point out that this was in the women's restroom. Not just men get the luxury that is the "floor toilet."

Far more common is a lack of toilet seat. It is usually either missing altogether or at least comes in a much narrower form than the ones back home.

In my apartment's case, they even come in fishy varieties.

What you can't see in these pictures is the flushers. Not one toilet here has a handle flush on the side of the toilet. Here the flushers come in many varieties. For example, some have buttons on the wall to push, large pads or pedals on the floor to step on, or an option to start and stop your own flush (which isn't such a bad idea considering the western world's water consumption). However, I found out the hard way that not all contraptions near a toilet are meant to flush it. One of the first weeks here, I went in to a discoteca to use the restroom on a Friday or Saturday evening out and about in Torino. I saw a string coming from the ceiling of the restroom, and I pulled on it expecting it to flush the toilet. It didn't seem so unreasonable to me seeing as I had seen many pictures of toilets with chain flushers. Anyway, I pulled on the thing and to my dismay the toilet did not flush, but instead a loud alarm sounded. Dallan and Alex were waiting for me outside and said that the neat blue lights that came from the floor suddenly turned red just as the ringing began. Turns out I had tripped some sort of alarm meant to be pulled in the event that you injure yourself or come to harm in the restroom, but I would like to note that not one person came to my aid.

-Ashley