The Oswalt Life: A little piece of Heaven on Earth

I promise I am almost done with posting our vacation pictures/stories from SEPTEMBER! I forgot I had this one drafted already, and I'm working on finishing the rest!

Dear God, just one tiny little request.... When I die, could you make my heaven look like Lake Como Italy..... Thanks, Love Rachel.

Kirk and I have never been anywhere so beautiful. Lake Como Italy has a very peaceful vibe about it. We felt very relaxed and at ease, which was a nice change from our previous whirlwind touristy days in London and Paris. We flew from Paris to Milan, Italy and took a train up to Lake Como. Once we arrived by train, we went to the tourist info booth to find out how to get to our hotel. We have no luck with buses, but thought we'd try our luck again. We bought tickets to the town (we thought we were staying at), but actually bought tickets to the opposite side of the Lake.... whoops! Good thing I had an itinerary to show the bus driver who laughed at us and told us we bought the wrong tickets. Who knew they would have two towns so close in name and distance? We needed Griante (gree-ante), but I was pronouncing it wrong (gree-nate) which was and actual town.... Granate. We went back to the info booth, and decided to take a faster (and much more expensive) ferry boat taxi up the lake. This was so much better than a bus, so much so that anytime we traveled, we traveled by ferry. We like our hotel, but we usually choose smaller charming hotels. This huge hotel catered to the British, and I guess I should have know because the name was Brittania Excelsior (duhh). We we're the youngest people by about 60 years!!! However, the blue-haired Brits knew how to party and showed us how to have a good time! We did get to use their travel guide to ask questions to, which was convenient! We visited a gorgeous villa and its gardens, went to Bellagio for shopping and dinner (twice), and to downtown Como to do some sightseeing!

We met some of the nicest Australians while waiting for a ferry, and utilized their experience and knowledge of Como while we rode the ferry together. They could not get over how much Kirk looked like their nephew (or what their nephew would look like at 30!) They we're on a 3 month long vacation to all of Europe, and we loved talking with them about where they'd been. We were sad to say goodbye when we got off at Bellagio, they were heading to another town, and I kept kicking myself for not exchanging info with them! The next morning we decided to take a ferry to downtown Como, and when we sat down on the ferry, there they were! We talked and laughed the entire hour ride down the gorgeous lake, and loved learning about their life in Australia, and what their teenagers were doing while their parents were on vacation for 3 months! When we arrived downtown, we pointed them to in the direction of the train station. They wanted to get their train tickets for the next day early, and recommended we do the same. They gave us such great advice, but we were going to wait until after we ate, or until the next day. While eating at a cafe outside the Duomo di Como (Church), our Australian mother came running up to our table frantic!!! She was so out of breath and was so relieved that she found us! She told us the train station we arrived at only supported one route, and we actually needed a different train station (that wasn't even on our map). She had grabbed us an extra map in case she found us (she's awesome), and we said our goodbyes again! How lucky were we that she cared enough to run around trying to find us, we would have been so confused! After we ate, we headed to the "new" train station to book our tickets for the next day. We ran into Mr. Aussie, who was still buying his tickets. We loved running into them so much, it felt like we knew someone there! Again, we said our goodbyes AND FORGOT TO EXCHANGE INFO!!! I'm so disappointed, we would have totally called them if we ever go to Australia :-( They were definitely our guardian angels, there to make sure we were on the right track (train track that is!) It was a good thing we decided to go early, the trains we had looked at in advance were no longer offered, or so we thought. We had forgotten our itinerary (not really, Kirk didn't want to carry the backpack that day) (its his fault), and they didn't give us the options that we thought we could choose from. Luckily I remembered what transfer town was the best option for us, and after the attendant with an attitude finally punched in that town, she found the train we wanted (no thanks to her)! Now there was only one problem, our train was supposed to leave before our cooking class was over. Boooo. It takes so long to travel from one place to another in Como, and you are at the mercy of the ferry/train schedules. We took and amazing cooking lesson, but had to leave early to catch our ferry. We had an amazing time in Italy, and it remains our favorite place on earth!

This was the view from our hotel room!

That was our hotel's "floating" swimming pool in the lake!

Villa Carolatta

Kirk really stared enjoying the "silly" pictures,

we took this before we saw the "no pictures" sign... whoops!

Taken from on of the villa's balconies

Taken from the garden at the villa, the town across the lake is Bellagio

Would anyone like a red Italian sports car?

Perfect afternoon, overlooking the lake from the garden

On the ferry, heading to Bellagio

One of my favorite pictures, Kirk thinks it looks super-imposed!

Okay, this is me pouting... Kirk tried a few times, but couldn't capture the picture I wanted. He loves this picture of me pouting, boooo!

We didn't realize the shopping was all up hill, and Kirk was really wishing he hadn't gone jogging this morning. Really, who exercises on vacation? Ummm, Kirk does!

Let the shopping begin

This was the best snack we've ever had in our life, the fresh mozzarella was to die for, and the prosciutto was amazing, we still talk about this snack! Plus, it was so much fun watching Kirk try to order in Italian. Next time I will get this on video!

We had an early dinner, everything closes down early. This was quite the change coming from Paris where we ate dinner at 10:00!

This is another favorite of mine! The cafe behind us is where our Aussie mother found us!

The door to the Duomo di Como

At our cafe eating lunch

He's got the whole Rachel in his hands!

The view of the lake from downtown

We took the funicular (cable car) up to a town named Brunate, this is the Church for this town.

Brunate overlooks all of Lake Como, and yes Kirk is wearing a "Como" t-shirt!

This is what happens with a language barrier. Please... stand further away from us!

Kirk admiring the view!

I didn't realize he was taking this, I was watching some ladies take their own pictures!

Then they took one for us! This was our Christmas card picture!

You'd think that with all this walking, and all these stairs I wouldn't have gained any weight..... WRONG!!!

Taken from the funicular on the way back down.

Our cute hotel room with a view!

On our way to the cooking lesson, before heading out of town :-(

My pack was starting to weigh more throughout the trip!

Mi Amore!

This guy was fun to watch, he has 3 camera's strapped on and a video camera!

The small fishing village of Varenna, where our cooking lesson was.

Our class mates. The two couples in the back own vineyards in Napa California, and one was a retired Pediatric Dentist, how ironic! The other couple was from LA. We felt very at home with them!