Italy recap: on to Lezzeno

I need to say this before anything else:  Conrad deserves so much thanks and appreciation for doing ALL of the driving when we were in Italy.  He drove in cities (Bologna) and on freeways and on those narrow roads clinging to the hills that surround Lake Como.  For that last one, he merits some sort of award.  He got us to our last two destinations (and partway back to Rome, from where we flew home).

And kudos, too, to Van.  I don't think it's giving away any confidences to share that Van, like many, can be prone to car sickness.  No reading in the car for him.  And the front seat is better.  So he sat up there beside Conrad and provided excellent navigation.

Me?  I stayed quiet so as not to rattle anyone, chiming in conversationally from time to time, but otherwise occupying a back seat and reading when the landscape wasn't captivating.  So I did my part, right?

It was a somewhat rainy morning when Conrad went with Van to pick up the rental car.  I got the (heavy) bags down to street, and once we were loaded in, we were off northward.  Our destination:  Lezzeno.

I'll be honest:  the scenery was not amazing for the early part of the drive.  A lot of it was kind of flat, agricultural.  Important to Italy, not a tourist attraction.  That's fine.  But then we neared Lecco, and things got more interesting.  As we passed that town, an arm of Lake Como came into view.  Despite the grey weather, we stopped to admire and take photos.

Lake Como is shaped like an inverted Y.  Imagine the triangle that is formed by the two prongs.  We came up the western shore of the eastern prong (still with me?), rounded the bend, and came partway down the eastern shore of the western prong.  Got it?  Good.  Lezzeno was the community we were headed to, and Filario was the hotel. 

We made it there late afternoon and checked in.

The hotel property includes what look to be residences that either the hotel owns and lets out or that individuals own and the hotel manages and lets out.  I'm not sure which.  Our room was really a two-bedroom, one-and-a -half bathroom townhouse that was on the other side of the pool

from the main hotel building. 

That gave us lots of space, not to mention balcony and patio overlooking the lake.

We could sit there (and I did at least once) watching hotel guests and ferries

and other boats on the lake going by.  We overlooked beach cabanas

that we might have used given some good weather.  Ah well.  A mixed weather bag on the trip, but we enjoyed it all.

Once unpacked, we had no real plans.  Once again, we had a nice dinner booked, but for our first night, we simply went to the beach bar and sat out by the lake, enjoying what was the best pizza I had on the trip

and cocktails all around,

including a Hugo for me. 

Evening closed in,

we grabbed a bottle of wine and returned to the room to relax and read and eventually go to bed.

two Bologna dinners

Last Bologna post.  That feels a bit sad somehow.  A small sense of melancholy that mirrored how I felt knowing that we were done with one of our holiday destinations.  Ah well.

But cheer up, Peter:  we're going to talk about food!  YAY!

We had two nicer meals booked for Bologna.  Unlike on Ischia (and later in the trip), neither was a tasting menu.  Both were, happily, a la carte.  I say that only because we actually ate moderately, all things considered and did NOT spend a night clutching our bellies, overly full.  No, instead these were simpler meals.  Fancy enough food, but simpler.

And speaking of fancy and simple....

First up was at our hotel, I Conoscenti.  We had a nice little nook of sorts in the dining room and ordered cocktails.  The Tribute to Jerbis for me. 

We later moved to a bottle of luscious red wine. 

Oh, so good.  You know those wines that you can just sit and breathe in and enjoy the bouquet for so long,

not wanting to let it go and actually drink it?  And then it's so good when you do drink it?  Yeah, that was this.  Heaven.

We received our breads

and gazpacho amuse

and then the first course.  The panzanella with shrimp carpaccio for me. 

Delicate and lovely.  My main was the roasted octopus,

and it was tasty, but I admit, I had my heart set on the pigeon for dinner.  Alas, it was not available.  Darn it.  These two handsome guys, meanwhile, had steak, and it was super tender and good.  What lovely company they are!

No dessert for us, though I dimly recall that I ordered an amaro.  And that was the first of our two fine meals in Bologna.

Meal two:  dinner at Ahimè.  But first, aperitivos!  The restaurant was just the other side of the market from the hotel, so when we headed past the market entrance, we stopped into a bar across from it, Bar Mercato. 

I may have had two drinks, a Clover Club

and then a Negroni. 

Cool little place aside from the smoke wafting in from the smoker parked outside the open door.  Ah well.  Drinks done, we popped around the corner and into the restaurant.

It was in an article that Van sent me that I learned of the restaurant, and I was intrigued.  Oh, I should say that we got a lot of suggestions from friends as to where to dine in Bologna, and we were grateful, but I already had this one booked by that point.  We sat at the kitchen counter with a great view in,

and - typical us - we were among the first in the restaurant. 

A small crew of guys ran a tight ship - that kitchen was CLEAN - but they weren't the warmest, at least not until we asked one if he was watching the big soccer game going on in the city that night.  That cracked the ice a little.  We perused the menu and ordered a wine that similar to and almost as good as the night before. 

As for the food...

Bread service.  I always love a good bread service.

A nice, light starter made from cucumber but with tapioca.  Really interesting.  Yes, I lusted after some of the other starters, but I was glad to get something not as rich and heavy in me.

Duck breast, cooked right.  I get wary of duck at restaurants because all too often it is chewy.  No, every time I had duck in Italy, I was in good hands.

Peaches with wine sauce and vanilla pastry cream.  I liked the idea, but I was surprised that the peaches were not as ripe as I would expect, nor was there anything done to them to mitigate that.

Figs and fig leaf gelato.  Figs were everywhere in Italy, and I couldn't be happier about it.  The better of the two desserts.

Ahimè was a good meal, a modern meal, and I was glad we went, but it was not the warmest experience we had in Italy.  I'd recommend it, and I would want to try some more of their menu myself,

but of the two fine meals in Bologna, the first was the more enjoyable for how completely we enjoyed service, setting, food, and drink.

Italy recap: other Bologna sightseeing

Hey y'all, I know that there has been a barrage of posts.  Thanks for bearing with me.  Almost done Bologna - one more after this one - and then we're basically halfway through the trip.  Yay!

Also, I head out of the country on Saturday, and I want to make space in my blog for posts from that trip....

So, let's barrel through with Bologna.  A post to sum up what other sightseeing and the like that we did, and another later to highlight the two nice dinners we had in the city.  And then it will be on to Lake Como!

The day after the tasting tour, the skies were gloomier.  No rain, not yet when we went out, but gloomier.  We actually stopped in a few stores that day to find a warmer layer, a jacket for each of us, because it had cooled off so much.  But otherwise, our first destination was lunch over near where we had ended the tour the day before.  051 Osteria Santo Stefano was our goal.  Tigelle, a local bread recommended by Sarah, was my goal. 

Oh, we had other food as well.  I ended up with fried tortellini, which were tasty. 

I also had an amarena spritz

or some such concoction which ended up being a mildly boozy sour cherry soft drink.  I say that with appreciation!

Lunch in our bellies, we wandered to a nearby building that we knew we could get roof access from to see the city.  Alas, the city on a grey day was not stunning. 

The building was pretty cool, however.  Those stairs! 

That Jesus! 

Fantastic.  The rest of the afternoon consisted of poking in a few stores and - more than likely, I cannot fully recall - a nap.

We had dinner plans at the hotel that night - see the next blog entry when it posts - but we still went out in search of an aperitivo.  We made ourselves pretty

and headed along the portico to the bar at the Grand Hotel Majestic già Baglioni for drinks at the bar.  A beautiful bar,

and we perched at it rather than at a table.  The bartender, from what we gathered, was missing a colleague because of traffic or something, and he was harried.  We felt for him.  But we enjoyed our drinks and snacks. 

A breakfast martini for me, and:  yum!

The next day it rained.  A lot.  We did squeeze in a wee bit of shopping, but the day was otherwise our only other museum day in Italy. 

I've posted a bit already, but for your enjoyment, some further works from La Quadreria

and the Museo Civico Medievale. 

In between the two we headed back to the Mercato delle Erbe and once again enjoyed piadine and Lambrusco for lunch.

And, finally, a library.  I don't actually visit libraries much on my travels (that will change next week!), but Conrad and I did quickly check out the Biblioteca Salaborsa while Van was relaxing in the room.  Pretty impressive!

The weather conspired against us somewhat, alas.  Ah well.  You get the weather you get while on vacation, and you make the most of it, right?!

so this happened today

And it sucked.

First time in the pool in over three weeks.  Ugh.  Here's hoping it gets better!