Wow, my left ring finger really wanted to pluralise 'week', and it's true that it feels like I was in Italy for longer than one week – and I nearly was because although I knew my flight was leaving on the 23rd, I had the idea that it was a Monday. It was only yesterday, lying in the sun by the cascata (waterfall) near Chiavenna with Michele, writing a thank you card for my wonderful hosts Laura & Vinci, that I realised the date, and...eeeeeeeeeeek! Lolli and Teo had to kick people out of their bar so they could dash to Chiavenna for a good bye drink. Oh, but I think they LOVED to have an excuse to chuck a bit of a sickie...
So, I arrived in Chiavenna last Sunday evening, from the Swiss Alps (the Engadine Valley), where Marty and I had spent the weekend – he went kite surfing FOR HOURS on the Saturday (he was the 2nd last kite on the lake at Silvaplana and I was accompanied by peanuts and beer while I waited, oh so patiently...not my forte, as you may know...and then he nearly blacked out, methinks perhaps he overdid the exertion...but some pizza fixed him up and we had an early night in a campground full of exhausted kite-surfers.
On Sunday, the worse for wear Grandpa Moo Moo and I went for a day hike above Pontresina (not far from Silvaplana, which is near St Moritz). We kinda cheated, I thought, because we started our hike with a chairlift which took us up to around 2000m and only climbed the remaining 1000m up to Piz Languard (3262m), but still we did it and it was really excellent, but a bit difficult to breathe at that height! Marty and I also had one fun night out with his flatmate in Stuttgart, on the Friday when I arrived – luckily for me it was the Sommerfest, a big festival in the centre of the city. We saw some great jazz, including a very convincing rendition of 'What a Wonderful World' (video to come!). I'd expected to spend more time there, but Switzerland was appealing to both of us, and I'd already spent two weeks in various German cities.
Arriving in Chiavenna on Sunday evening was like coming home. There is nothing like Italian hospitality – and they tell me they're considered 'cold' in the north and that the further south you go, the better it gets! We went to a fancy new restaurant that night, which had only very recently been opened by some friends of my hosts. It seemed that nobody in our group really liked the place, and at that dinner, and future dinners, I marvelled at how much discussion there was about every element of the evening – in Italy, everyone has an opinion and they're not afraid to shout it out loud! Anyway, I liked the dinner and it only cost me a kiss! I liked everything in Italy! And having a personal translation service, in the form of the dashing, young Fabio who lived in Sydney for 16 years and thus speaks Aussie English without a trace of an Italian accent, was a bemusing bonus! Grazie mille Fabio!!!
I returned to Switzerland twice to 'take in the sun' during my stay in Italy, hence 'Switzaly'. The first time Laura and I spent an absolutely lovely day lazing, dozing and reading by the Silsersee at Isola – a freezing alpine lake which we only managed to jump into for about 3 seconds and resurfaced to applause. The second time we drove with Laura's sister Cami, her Mum Antonia and her mum's friend Mariana to the other side of the mountains, the Splugel Valley (I think), for the thermal baths in Andeer. It was a great day too, but we drove through three mountain passes and spent two hours in the pools and were pretty tired when we came home to Friday night dinner and drinks plans...but we went out anyway and had a great dinner at a Crotto (www.crottoalprato.it) – a particular type of restaurant only found in Chiavenna and named such because of the mountains in which they have natural wine and cheese cellars. There is a set menu usually at Crottos – and in this case it was a five-course, heavy, meaty and lasted a good few hours. But of course, my dietary requirements were well catered for with cheese cheese cheese! We also drank a few chocolate grappas (!!) after the meal, and then proceeded to amble across town to a bar, where I sat uncomfortably for a few minutes across from a cool looking couple who I really wanted to talk to, but got the impression they couldn't speak English very well. Tentatively, I asked them a few questions, and when I asked the guy, Pepe, what he did for work the floodgates opened. Turns out he was a soldier, of some sort, and really wanted to tell me all about it, rating the differences between the soldiers of different countries and telling me amongst other things, that he didn't think soldiers should be allowed to have opinions about war.
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