Buon Giorno con Amore Dall' Italia!!

Landing in Milan was a very warm welcome!! We had been cold in London & the temperature was like an Italian kiss as we got off the plane!

Our dear JD Edwards friend, Denise Comoli, greeted us at the airport with bottled frizzante & grapes & drove us 45 minutes outside of Milan to a wonderful storybook fairyland called Lago d'Orta.  Orta, for short.  Our apartment is tucked in along a road that seems as old as time & leads to a lovely piazza with cafes & shops & leaves you truly wanting more, even 2 weeks later!   

After settling into our homey apartment, & allowing our ecstatic excitement of actually being here to truly begin to settle in,  Denise & her engaging 13 year old son Giovanni met us in the piazza & led us to their beautiful home for aperitivos on their terraza that offers stunning views of the lake & Isola San Giulio that you see there in the middle.  Construction on the basilica & convent on that island began in the 6th century! Construction in the village, where we are, began in the 12th century!  I could not stop feeling like I was on a movie set...we walked in and around beautifully cobbled paths that lapped the edges of golden terracotta stucco walls with pots of fire red geraniums, and these lead to more paths, and the old never changed, and it felt like history breathing.  

Giovanni was, and still is, our trusty guide.  We could have wandered for hours & never tired!  Well, we did tire a bit, but only because Orta is a village of  hills.  Don't think there were too many land surveyors in the Middle Ages, so they just cobbled up and over all of it!  Lucky for them it's not at Denver's altitude; it'd be a wicked walk home for the Comoli's!

Roman grainary wheel...actually Roman.  We ARE in Italy, so Roman things here are not necessarily surprising, but Roman things are not the wallpaper of my life, not my normal backdrop, so it was wonderfully surprising & so old!!  Not surprising that it's still there I suppose....way too heavy to be moved!      

We had had an amazing time and as the first evening stars signaled the day's close, with the ever ringing church bells soon after, lights began to twinkle on the far side of the lake and like a gem in its sterling setting, Isola San Giulio does not disappoint and holds the gaze of anyone who stops long enough to appreciate her colors & to drink in the still contentment she offers...