Travel Day / Stresa Day 9

The Alongis met at 8 am for breakfast and Guy and I were about 10 after before we got there. The rest of the clan was already present and accounted for and most had already gobbled up their breakfasts. Two bad things this morning. 1. No. Mini. Doughnuts. Gah! How can this be? After making this discovery yesterday - and anxiously awaiting today's breakfast, I have to say I am feeling a twinge of disappointment.  And 2. We have a member of the group a bit under the weather today. So instead of taking a really long travel day and hiking around Cinque Terre, we opted for the interstate route to make the fastest b-line to Stresa. This, however, was not a disappointment as none of us minded to make it a shorter travel day. Most of the group has been there before, but for those who have not been there...the adventure awaits for another trip!

As we said goodbye to the Le Terre Rosse hotel staff, they gave us all "presents" as we left. Some of us got pen and ink sketches of San Gimignano and the kids got little jars of marmalade. They told us next time we were in the area we had to stay with them. :) The place was amazing and kudos to Guy -trip planner extraordinaire - for finding such a fantastic spot. The girls found Luna and told her goodbye, but alas, she was gone when I came out. Gotta love a hotel with a friendly loving cat. With the cars loaded and the address of La Palma Hotel loaded into the iphone, Siri guided us out of Tuscany and to the interstate. Some of the trip was beautiful scenery, but some was just industrial areas. Looks like we saw the headquarters for Barilla, Lindt, Riuniti, Autogrill, and a few others. Not sure why that is exciting...but hey, the rolling hills of Tuscany were gone and we had to get excited about something.

Traffic was heavy today. June 2 is an Italian holiday, like our 4th of July. Especially heavy around Bologna and Milan. Lots of campers, but not like our gargantuan campers we have in the States. These are a bit smaller. So as we traveled up the road, John stayed close behind and my eyes were always in the mirror checking on them. However we had our walkie talkies and we chatted often. So if they did get separated from us they would have just given us a shout. We did have one close call as all the cars came to a crawl and the abrupt stop almost caused some rear-ending. And one other time we almost missed our turn and as John said later, the Italians seem to drive a bit too fast and are all over the road, but are courteous when you need to merge in a hurry.

We took a couple of breaks, got gas and had lunch at the Autogrill (which are super fun). We are not sure what kind of games the van behind us was playing, but we played "lets see how many Italian words we can say with each letter of the alphabet". We struggled after 4 or 5 words per letter and by the time we got to H we began to grow weary. Luckily Stresa was only about 20 more minutes away and our road trip was nearing completion.

We do love the familiarity of this hotel and it is absolutely gorgeous. Our room faces the Lake and we checked with Betty and John to make sure they didn't want it. They also had a lovely view, so we are staying put. Whew...not that I cared to give up the view, but they are on the 6th floor which is really about 8 floors via the stairs. Everyone settled into their new digs and I opted for a quick nap, Guy and Rosalie went into town to explore, and Cara and the kids went to the big pool across the street. When Guy came back I didn't seem to be able to snooze much longer, so we went up top to the small pool on the roof of our hotel. This similar view has been the wallpaper of my ipad for the past two years. Seeing it makes me feel good. I did take a few pictures, but it is very hazy today. So hopefully it will be better tomorrow. We certainly are not complaining about the weather, tho. It has been amazing.

We are going into town around 7pm for dinner and Rosalie and I may take a nice long walk afterwards. I'm looking forward to an early morning run along the sidewalk by the lake. Again. A little piece of Heaven on earth.

Dinner was at the Ristorante Pizzeria Mamma Mia. The hotel made us a reservation and it was outside under their awning. It was a warm night, no jackets needed. It was a fishy kind of night. I think everyone had fish but me. I wasn't very hungry tonight but ravioli sounded good. They tasted homemade with cheese and spinach. The sauce was hardly anything, very nice change from the heavy sauces I've been eating. The rest had a variety of fish dishes. Trout, sea bass, perch and a white fish. They all looked pretty similar...but tasty! The staff waiting on us was extremely nice, very attentive, and enjoyed visiting with Big John - testing his Sicilian. Before we left we set up a reservation for Thursday night! That must say something about the restaurant. We skipped dessert because we did know of a good gelato shop here, so we stopped in for some small cups of the creamy deliciousness. My coconut was really good. Big chunks of coconut. After dessert we walked toward the lake and Guy and Rosalie tried to figure out the boat schedule for tomorrow. Apparently the fast boat doesn't go up to Locarno, Switzerland anymore. Grace was pretty disappointed as she wanted swiss cheese and chocolate. I think we can manage that in this town. Guy confirmed the schedule with the desk clerk and he was right. Game changer...so even at nearly midnight, the plans for tomorrow are unsure.

While the family sat atop the hotel sipping a variety of drinks, Rosalie and I went for a walk so I could map out a nice area to run tomorrow. Looks like I'll have to make some shorter loops, but that's ok! The view will be spectacular. We walked 2.8 miles and then up 8 flights of stairs to the rooftop. We both got our steps in for the day, but Rosalie had quite a few more than me.

So good night from Stresa, tomorrow promises to be another day filled with adventure.