I woke up… It’s odd, every so often I’ll wake up and take a minute or two to work out where I am. This particularly happens when I’ve been dreaming of home… then I remember… I’m in Italy, in Baveno. Unfortunately, the view from my balcony still wasn’t any good ‘cos it was rainy & visibility was poor… It’s a pity ‘cos it’s supposed to be a very beautiful area.
I thought I felt better but wasn’t too sure, I was a bit wary. When I arrived downstairs a number had expressed concerns about my well-being last night since I wasn’t at drinks. Hmm… I still don’t know what the gift was for people who have been on a previous Insight tour. Anyway, I hadn’t realised I had inherited so many mothers. A few were going to call last night to see whether I was OK & whether I needed anything but decided against it since I was likely asleep… Which is lucky ‘cos I was. It was nice that people cared so much. We’d become a close group. And here it was, our last day together! 🙁
We gathered together & set off for the boats. I was unsure about travelling on a boat since I’m prone to motion sickness at the best of times. I got on the second boat with the other half of our tour group. Further queries regarding my wellness. It’s nice they missed me last night.
We were staying in Baveno, one of the towns on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Within the lake are four islands, Bella, Madre, Pescatori and San Giovanni, collectively called the Borromean Islands. We were on our way to see the Borromeo Palace, Palazzo Borromeo, on Bella island. The island was named after Carlo the 3rd’s wife, you guessed it… Isabella… der! The Borromeo family were bankers, now their money is in industry. The palace was built in the 17th Century for the family. Only the first floor and the extensive garden at the rear of the palace are accessible to tourists ‘cos the family still use the upper levels as a holiday home, it’s not a museum. It’s someone’s house. Upon closer inspection, while we were waiting under the entrance at the front courtyard, you could see that some of the windows, doors and the columns on the opposite wall were actually fake! This theme seems to run through the building… I’m not sure on why, I forgot to ask. Anyway, up the marble stairs, following our guide, ‘the princess’… Not sure why she was called that. There were rooms with books, paintings and weapons. Of note was a small table decorated in extreme detail of flowers… all mosaic. Impressive work! The ceilings were of note too since they used the same impressive fake 3D decorations. Everything seemed to have the symbol of three interlocking circles – indicating the union of the three wealthy families at the time. Even our guide had a pin on her lapel with the symbol. I wonder what happened to the other two families? I was feeling a bit unsteady inside, it made me realise I wasn’t as well as I thought I was. Anyway, there was the bed that Napoleon slept in as a guest of the family, a really high music room with bad acoustics & I swear fake doors on the second floor balcony! There were sculptures by Canova and a treaty document signed by Mussolini attempting to end WWII. Oh, and a selection of the Countess’s doll and marionette collection. Downstairs to the grottoes… These were studded with volcanic rock and pebbles. It took 25 years to complete them. This was originally used as an internal garden due to the climate… now it houses armour and weapons and the remains of a 3000 year old boat… which to be honest could have been the remains of a tree that washed up in the rain yesterday… it was encased in glass so it must have been special. Before getting to the garden, we got to see the Flemish tapestries with cool optical illusion things. They seemed obsessed with animals and I don’t think the weavers really knew quite what a monkey looked like. Anyway, I wondered whether the upper levels of the palace were all modern with LCD screens and surround sound? This could explain the fake windows and doors! Hmm. Out to the garden with its various fauna and white peacocks… I saw one fly in and land on the lower patches of grass… it was pretty impressive! I also got to see one of them be a little upset with it’s tail feathers all fanned out… I couldn’t get the camera ready in time. Oh well! Even with the rain, I think I got a few good pictures in the garden.
I was a little cold by that time so I needed a hot drink. I asked for a hot chocolate at a little café that seemed packed… I think I got just that.. it wasn’t milky at all, it was heavy like melted chocolate & seemed to be getting thicker as it cooled. I think it was actually a packet thing… It was alright, would have been better if it weren’t so rich. I picked up a dessert snack too, they were like wafers.
It was really pouring down by then. On the way out we passed these little stores. I picked up a small raincoat since I was getting drenched.
We boarded boats & went back to Baveno. We had a bit of a rest before needing to get ready to go again.
I went downstairs early & sat on the chair near the window… typing on my phone again. This way I’d be ready to go when the group gathered. It wasn’t long before we were all assembled & ready.
We boarded the bus & were heading for Switzerland. We all did the quick check to make sure we had our passports… Just in case the bus was stopped at the border. Apparently it can happen.
Ray was concerned we may need to do a song together later so he sat with me at the start of the trip and asked whether he had the words written out correctly for the song Words. The issue was that whenever I sing it, I sing in the style of Boyzone, not the Bee Gees. They have less words, excuse the pun, in their version and I like Boyzone’s better. Nevertheless, I corrected it without the “la da da da da da da” lines and otherwise it looked fine to me. But he was clearly not happy with it, particularly with one line I’d written again… Not to worry. If we did do it, I could adapt.
I slept most of the way otherwise, writing had kinda made me nauseous anyway. At the border there seemed to be a lot happening. Apparently the bus that was holding everyone up had Belgium citizens on it. They just waved us through like it’d be an inconvenience to look at a bus mostly filled with Australian’s.
I remember Alison talking about the characteristics of the Swiss, e.g. good time keepers, known for watches, chocolate & army knives and other things and how the world would be better if the European countries all used their strengths but how bad it would be if they were all confused – there’d be chaos.
I don’t know how it came up but Alison was explaining how she didn’t understand muesli… Apparently it was created by poor people who had run out of food and they only had an apple core, some oats from the horse feed, etc… She seemed to believe that it wasn’t meant for general consumption… that there are better things to eat these days. I agree but Italian’s have overlook the value of a Big Breakfast! 🙂
More sleeping on the trip… Not that I have any objections to that… Gotta love sleep!
When we arrived at Lugano it was raining still. So we got to take Insight umbrella’s from under the bus. These are the huge type. They have on them “Insight Vacations”… Alison wasn’t sure whether it was a good advertisement, having so many people with such umbrellas… It certainly looked like someone was making a statement. 🙂
Lugano was kinda dead. It was a holiday or something. I hadn’t realised till we were sitting down for lunch that we actually traveled to Switzerland for the sole purpose of having lunch. How odd is that! I was with some of the others when we decided on a restaurant. I had a nice pizza with pepperoni, I think it was the equivalent of Mexican & I put some chili flakes on for added spice – I wasnt gonna let my stomach stop me from enjoying it. It’s funny, when you order Pizza it comes unsliced… It then becomes a full-on meal with a sharp knife & fork. I don’t mind it at all but it’s almost as if slices were only ever designed to facilitate take away… on-the-go eating. Anyway, I enjoyed lunch. It was really warm under the clear awning of the restaurant.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for dessert or to stop & buy Swiss chocolate though.
It’s funny, if you pay in Euros here you’ll get Francs in change. Which means if your meal is €9,00, you pay €10,00 and therefore would get 1,50 Francs… Weird. Remembering that decimals are commas and thousands are periods. 🙂
Lunch was done & we were returning to Italian soil… Dinner was at the hotel on our last night. It was good that Alison swapped the dinner nights ‘cos otherwise the group wouldn’t have been together again after this bus trip back to the hotel. On the way, we filled out feedback forms for Alison and there were a few airport transfer things for people that needed sorting.
At some point Lyn came over and asked if she could compare notes… with her Journal to mine. She started reading hers but then wanted to hear mine. So I quietly read her my blog entry for the second day of our tour (I no longer had the first)… She liked it so much she said I had to read it to the others. So I did that from my seat. They liked it so wanted the next day too… Midway through Alison told us about something we were passing… she didn’t know what was going on at the back of the bus with my storytime. So Lyn thought that Alison and the rest of the bus should hear it so she told Alison… So I then went to the front of the bus and read my completed blog entries to all the bus over the microphone. Unfortunately, I had only written to the point where we had seen David in Florence. They liked it and even though I’d screwed up some of the facts Alison liked it too.
While I was at the front, Alison convinced me that going to Milan for a rest didn’t make sense since it was busy and there wasn’t anything to see except a church. When I got back to the hotel I organised a hotel to stay in Stresa, the neighboring town, for four days. That way I had some rest time and a chance to work out my plan for, what I hadn’t realised till then was, 18 more days in Italy.
There was going to be a little pressure to sing a song for the group that night so I was preparing to sing something. The Italian songs were ruled out but when I was listening to Goodbye My Lover by James Blunt that morning I realised I could sing that or Lyn wanted Perhaps Love by Denver & Domingo.. there was a section in that song where I couldn’t remember the tune so I rang Lyn before we had to meet for dinner and asked if she could listen to the songs and tell me which was better… She still liked the latter and helped me with the problem section. I guess that was it then… Hell!
Anyway, down to dinner… Everyone was “quietly” slipping Roberto and Alison their gratuities in envelopes… Let me digress at this point…
I still don’t see the point of tipping. I think that if it’s expected then it should be added to the cost, this includes waiters and taxi drivers and tour guides… I don’t see why it’s necessary since all these people are being paid anyway… Just increase their wage or the cost of the service. It’d definitely make it a heck of a lot easier for visitors who haven’t been brought up with it as a standard practice, like Australia. The whole idea is foreign, I mean from when and how to leave it to how much to leave. What happens when you pay by card? What if you don’t leave enough… Is that offensive? We have no basis for which services are meeting expectations and which are exceeding and what dollar amount this equates to… Also, when I stop for lunch and it only costs 10 Euro… How does 1 Euro in their pocket help? Yay, you’re half way to buying a coffee! Whoopdidoo. Well, I did digress didn’t I…
Anyway, The first course was good, the potato soup was great. The second course, the fish, I didn’t like. It tasted fishy. Fish shouldn’t taste fishy in my opinion. Others at the table didn’t know what I meant and commented that it tasted like fish ‘cos it WAS fish… I hold to my belief that fish shouldn’t taste like that… I’m sure some of my readers will know what I’m talking about. The ice cream for dessert more than made up for it though. It was also Hazel’s birthday so the usual fuss was made at some point during the meal. Then coffee was offered.
After getting a photo with both Alison and Roberto we all migrated to drinks… I got some Benedictine to sip. The next thing you know, I’m being asked for a song… So I sang for them Perhaps Love. The place kinda went quiet while I sang. It came across OK I guess, my breathing and resonance wasn’t right but they still liked it so that was nice. A couple seconds of sit down time and on to two songs with Ray in the lead… He had us all in a circle singing them too… I didn’t know them so couldn’t. Apparently the staff and other people in the bar area didn’t know what to make of it… a bunch of people in a big circle singing songs. It was nice though. We’d all gotten a little closer by the end. Anyway, I had a extended conversation with Mark and everyone seemed happy talking with one another. Eventually, the crowd dwindled with hugs kisses and handshakes. It was difficult to believe that the tour was over… Then it was just myself, Fred & Lindy left.
Time for bed. Onto the unknown!