quiet bellagio

I had a strange urge to get out of Milan and see some countryside, definitely those famous lakes to the north that everybody mentions. On the last supper tour a slightly annoying Australian woman was saying "Bellagio, oh Bellagio its so beautiful there" so what better place to aim for. Bellagio, on the Y of Lago Como.

5 euros and 45 minutes later I was wandering around the port town of Como, finding those European style streets and residential grids enjoying a sleepy Friday afternoon. 

I couldn't have asked for a better day for weather, however the Duomo here was closed. Everything was very quiet, but maybe I was just adjusting to the change in atmosphere.

It was another 40 minute boat ride to Bellagio, and the views were pretty amazing. It's fantastic to see the crazy mountains rising from the water, and towns hugging the best spots on the coast - some of them completely in shadow while others enjoy the sun. Of course mansions dot the shoreline as well - the rich and well off have been holidaying here since the Roman times.

Finally arriving, I found myself just looking around, staring at the surrounding mountains.

Hypnotising mountains...

Climbing up through the town, I found that actually it was really quiet here! I wasn't sure if it was just because it was too late in the tourist season, or if it was simply always like this.

Walking adventures string you along on enticing pathways around every bend and turn until suddenly you realise you're lost and might be trespassing in someone's backyard. I quickly began to feel like I was the only tourist in town - a feeling which suited me just fine. It was still a really nice place to be.

Rock face was here.

It was quiet. Kind of ghostly. I did briefly met a couple from London who were staying here for a long weekend and were extremely keen to get out and find a loud lively pub, with people in it. They were growing bored of the constant mountain view - something I could sort of kinda not really understand at the time.

It was starting to get dark, and I was getting slightly worried about getting back. As the sun set, cold quickly swept over the town, although apparently the lake does a lot to moderate the temperature. As the light changed I could just my eyes follow the silhouette of the mountains - I quite like it! maybe I should go to further north to the Alps some day!

Someone's amazing house.

Goodbye sun. Goodbye Bellagio. I was escorted back to Como on one of those wild night bus rides where you're pretty sure you're going to die but really everything was fine. Had some delicious take away from a shop with a sign saying "Italian Fast Food" and jumped back on the train.

escape to milan

As I had a lot more holiday to spare than Grace, I escaped the cold and miserable November England  to the somewhat less cold and hopefully tasty Italy! Starting at the top in Milan and working my way down to Sorrento.

With non-researched expectations of random fashion parades, flying models, or at least some colour - Milan seems a bit boring on the pedestrian front. Above the boxy skyline it's easy to spot the gothic spires of the  iconic Duomo. The Piazza del Duomo around it is a sea of people, heavily sprinkled with persistent "street merchants" armed with string bracelets, goo splat balls and photo offers. You have to be fast to take a photo - its really annoying.

In somewhat of a last minute panic, I joined one of the expensive Last Supper tour groups, which basically just show you around the city for a few hours before going into see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. Apparently it could be difficult to get tickets (probably because tours like this reserved them all) and LS was most of the reason I wanted to go to Milan. Anyway, first we visit the Duomo!

The building itself is pretty special. The guide complained about the totally inconsistent design history and what seemed like Italians arguing over what it should look like. Its a pretty long project, morphing into its present form over the period between 1386 and 1812 - 1965 (thereabouts).  

Of course the site is fairly ancient as well, in the crypt sits a very old and now very dwarfed Christian baptistery built in 335. There was something big and Roman before that. Anyway, it's cool just to be there.

The huge windows create some pretty awesome afternoon light inside. I'm not much of a photographer so take my word for it that it was prettier in real life!

Pretty common to see these old priest corpses in their little display cabinets. You can see his hand here (he's dead!) but on some days they lift off the mask to give him some fresh air. Kinda creepy.

My favourite statue depicting poor old Bartholomew the Apostle, skinned alive and crucified upside down. That's the popular version of his death, the other is that he was simply beheaded - but clearly that's the boring version that nobody likes! He was sculpted here without his skin in 1562.

The serpent eating the man is a thousand year old symbol of the powerful Visconti family - that is the Visconti of Milan, who seemed to own everything for a few hundred years before the renaissance. The symbol is all over the place in Milan, and is pretty cool. Among other origin stories about Gothic kings or rebirth stories, our guide liked a myth about a "loch-ness" style monster menace that would eat small children. I like that one too!

We walked around outside looking at some of the cathedrals exterior in detail. I can't really recall the details, just some outlines about the symbols of the sun, the sparrow, man and the angels. Pretty cool though!

A product of the austerity cuts in Italy at the moment, people can now "Adopt a Gargoyle", making sure they don't fall down. In return the donors name is engraved on the statue - the latest in the cathedrals constant restoration campaign against time and gravity.

Right next to the cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II - the oldest shopping mall in Italy. 

Inside the old mall the ceilings were pretty amazing, although from them fell its designer, Giuseppe Mengoni, to his death before the buildings inauguration in 1877. Our guide speculated that perhaps he jumped, in stress of trying to impress the first king of the kingdom of Italy, after which the Gallery was named.

There is an old ritual here where if you can spin on your heel three times you'll be rewarded with "good luck". On the ground is a bull, part of the coat of arms for the Italian city of Turin. Apparently you're supposed to spin with your heel on the bulls genitals :/

The tour started naturally blending into talks about Leonardo, who lived in the city for about 20 years or so.

We walked to the Sforza Castle - Sforza being another powerful family who moved into Milan for about a century or so after the Visconti family tree ended. The castle was built around the 14th century, and aesthetically feels very bland and boring! But this being the Sforza castle, Leonardo spent a lot of time here, you know, mingling with the dukes and doing all sorts of "arty, designy" things.

To be very brief, Amidst a strange and turbulent history of war, assassinations, art and music, Ludovico Sforza, then Duke of Milan, commissioned Leonardo to create the Last Supper. We walked about for a while before going to the site, which was a church a few blocks away.

On another note, children are tasty!

On the way, we find some street signs like this! The guide explains that it's fairly common to see these around Milan.

Finally we come to the Santa Maria delle Grazie, the church home to the last supper painting. The painting is next to the burial place of the commissioners father, Francesco Sforza.

Of course you can't take your own photos of the last supper, but take my word for it that it does indeed look like this. Its quite big, you get 15 minutes with 24 other people to look at it before being forced out by the rather pushy staff. Despite that, its pretty nice to just be there and experience it.

walking in berlin

We spent four days in Berlin, and fortunately for us we were blessed with some amazing weather. Berlin is very friendly and laidback (public drinking a-ok), cheap (well, comparing to London) and feels quite big and sparse (huge boulevards and quite spread out city centre) History is obviously a big attraction of Berlin, and we took a walking tour to learn more...

Brandenburg Gate - Berlin's most iconic landmark where we started our 4-hour walking tour.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is made of  2,711 slabs of concrete of various height. A haunting memorial with stark contrasts in the solemn grey blocks, sunlight & shadows.

Walking amongst the taller blocks of memorial.

This playground was once the site of Hitler's bunker. Our walking tour group stopped here for a nice little picnic of beer and ice blocks, and our guide told us about last days of Hitler.

Our tour ended at the book burning Memorial near the Humboldt University - where the Nazis, with help of students from the university burned 20,000 books in 1933.

The weather was so good! This was in-front of the Berlin Cathedral.

We had to try currywurst - bite-sized sausage chunks smothered with ketchup and curry powder... tastes like how it sounds really... ok but not spectacular.

The roof of the Sony centre looks like a hot air balloon.

Berlin landmarks were lit up with massive projections as part of the Festival of Lights.

The East Side Gallery - where a 1.3km stretch of Berlin wall was painted over by artists after the fall of the Berlin wall.

Joe attempting to escape East Germany with the hordes.

Graffiti near the East Side Gallery

Near the East Side Gallery. Berlin's cute boxy yellow train is in the background.

The Jewish museum has some interesting memorials/installations. Very big inside, took us four hours to get through the exhibits.

This is the reception of our hotel. We stayed at the "Wall Street Plaza" hotel which has a fantastic tongue-in-cheek capitalism theme.The hotel hallway carpet looks like a stock market listing, the carpet in our room looks like a giant US dollar bill. The wall in our bedroom had this quote "Buy stocks and then go to sleep for a long time" Lolz.

There was a lot of construction site in central Berlin. The infamous East German TV tower is in the background.

Check out my new bag.

Autum is magical!

Roast pork & saurkraut - yummmo

Beers - mine was beer mixed with apple juice which was actually pretty tasty.

We had an awesome time in Berlin, and I really enjoyed learning more about the history. History was everywhere you look - from the Berlin wall markings on the ground to the filled in bullet holes on the Brandenburg to the war & holocaust memorials... If you're ever there, take a walking tour, it's a must-do.