Verbania, Part 1

I am making some pre-preparations for my trip back to NZ. So far this has consisted of staring at my borrowed suitcase and realising that the available space is oh-so-much smaller than my newly accumulated clothes, shoes and presents… it’s the eternal travel dilemma.

The impending completion of ‘Euro 2011’ in no way signals the end of this years travel blog. It will probably take me another month to finish editing and uploading pics. My just-finished three day excursion to Northern Italy was particularly photo-dense. Verbania was, as expected, absolutely picturesque.

I first visited Northern Italy in 2000 and promised myself that I would return as soon as possible, which turned out to be ten years later. Last year I went to Lake Como with The Programmer and my Grandparents, which was super special. This year I headed back there with my Liechtenstein-based family.

The original idea was to stay in the tourist trap of Locarno, on the shores of Lago Maggiore. However, as it is high season, last-minute accommodation was both hard to find and stupidly expensive. I went Googling and found Verbania, an area also on the shores of the lake, but which is far less touristy and correspondingly less pricey. The drive is an easy 2-3 hours from Liechtenstein (depending on traffic) and gets progressively more Italian. By the time the BIL informed me that we had crossed the border, my head had been in Italy for at least half an hour! The Swiss-Italian part of Switzerland is definitely more Italian than Swiss. 

Although we were looking for a budget hotel, we also needed at least 3 stars in order to cater for the needs of a baby. The spectacularly named Europalace, in Pallanza, fit the bill perfectly; in fact it exceeded our expectations in both service and facilities.

The Europalace is also home to La Cave Restaurant

We were expecting a four bed room, but for €120 a night we got a two bedroom mini-apartment, with balcony. A similar setup in Locarno would have been at least four times the price.

The room I shared with Miss J.She is very tidy for a small person.

Breakfast was included and it wasn’t just a dry bun and box of orange juice.

On day one we explored the town of Pallanza on foot. I quickly realized that, as with many small Italian towns, trying to photograph every beautiful or charming thing would require supergluing my camera to my face. Around every corner there was a ‘wow’ moment (until I got sick of hearing ‘wow’ and instructed everyone in the art of exclaiming ‘bellissimo!’).

I am thinking my next house will look like this. Just can't decide between the house on the left or right...

Pallanza is small, so we stopped for coffee at ‘The American Bar’ (excellent coffee, but as for the name…why?, oh why?) and scoped out our options for the next day. Having decided on a round trip boat ride to the various islands and towns, our next mission was dinner. I was keen on the Ristorante di Cigni but the impossibility of manoevering a push chair up the narrow staircase drove us instead to a nearby pizzeria.

I almost didn't post this pic on account of the top making me look f.a.t.

Not for the first time in Northern Italy, I experienced communication difficulties. After waiting 10 minutes and wondering if the waitress had forgotten about us, she turned up at our table with four beers. Encountering four blank faces, she asked me in Italian and then in English ‘what did you order?. Considering that all I’d done was poke my head in the door and tell her that we wanted a table for three adults and two children, were sitting outside and would like some menu’s, I don’t really know what happened there. I think it was a double-edged ‘funny accent’ problem – hers and mine, combined with the general aloofness of the blonde Northern Italian.

Having sorted out that little mix up, we settled down to dinner. I’m going to say it – I’ve never had a really fantastic dinner experience in Northern Italy. Lunches and coffee are fine, but for awesome food and fantastic, fast, friendly service in the evening you have to head further South. The further South, the better (however, on the flip side, ‘faster in the South’ applies also to the pickpockets and the male flirting!).

The food was pretty average, but with a bottle of vino under our belts, and a view of Lago Maggiore, it didn’t really matter.

After dinner, Miss J made me post in this alley with BabyG so she could take a pic with the lights that had just come on for the evening. She is mastering the art of digital photography, and I guess the importance of focus will come later.. :).

Later that night there was a thunder storm, during which I learned from a sleep-talking Miss J that ‘thunder’ and ‘lightning’ are ‘donner’ and ‘blitz’, like Santa’s reindeers. I fell asleep feeling happy to be alive and woke up ready to tackle breakfast and a day on the lago.

Part 2 coming soon!.

Big day for a little man

My little button of a nephew, BabyG

Coming from a fairly new country, lacking in historical traditions, I am sometimes perplexed by the little rituals and expectations that I encounter on my travels. Particularly, I find Catholicism a mix of awesome (the fantastic churches),  icky (saintly body parts?), out-of-touch (rules around contraception and divorce, homophobia), deceptive (sexual abuse) and misogynist (where do I start??).

Although the BIL's family is Catholic to the core, there was a serious disenchantment that occurred when the Bishop refused to sanctify Sistasana's marriage (she has been married before) or allow the couple to marry on any Catholic property. This last directive came down from above just four days before the event, resulting in a last minute panic and change of venue. Just to rub it in, the Bishop then also banned the local Catholic priest, who is a family friend, from facilitating the service in any venue, or from even being in the vicinity (in case this accidentally suggested God's approval, maybe?). Luckily, the Baptist pastor from St Gallens, Switzerland (Ernst) was fully ready to strut his non-Catholic stuff, both as marriage celebrant and, on Sunday, at the dedication of the first offspring. He didn't even bat an eyelid that this is obviously a miracle child that gestated for only 7 months. :D

As Baptists do not do anything similar to a Catholic 'christening', with holy water and so on, they improvised with props such as a large squishy globe on which Ernst pointed out New Zealand, and by coming up with some English songs, like 'he's got the whole world in his hand'. I generally am not a fan of churches, or religion, but this was a sweet service and being mostly in German, was very bearable. I joked to Sistasana that if they started 'speaking in tongues' I wouldn't even notice.  As a teenager I experienced some really radical, scary and pushy churches and even a sniff of religious fanatacism still makes me want to run away screaming that I'm in the presence of evil, save me god.

Nothing happened in this service to tweak my 'weird-o-meter'. The important people - Sistasana, BIL, BabyG, Gotta (Godmother - Me), Götte (Godfather - Sigmund) and Miss J, went up on stage and an enthusiastic prayer was said asking for God's protection and blessing over BabyG. The Baptists in St Gallens are not into ponderous, they seem to be into grinning and.. wearing sandals with socks. Although I tend to feel that babies are naturally spiritual, it was very moving to have Ernst raving on about the wonderfulness of babies. Certainly I agree 100% with celebrating the arrival of a newbie to the family.  After the service we went downstairs to the church coffee bar, which is an innovation that I would recommend to all churches, everywhere.

Being a Godmother is a very big deal over here, even if in this case, we do not have the official piece of (Catholic) paper to certify it. My job is to look after BabyG's spiritual progress (what were they thinking??). I was seriously, really seriously hoping that I did not have to oath or promise to help him be Christian. It would have been a super embarrassing moment. I am also Miss J's 'Godmother' (unofficial) and have reinterpreted the role as helping them learn to live their own truth and be good, non-judgemental people. That seems important. Or, perhaps, we could all just imagine the word 'fairy' in front of my new job desciption?

Excuse photo quality, I was trying to be secretive, shoot from the hip, not use flash.

After the post-church caffeination, we all headed off to continue festivities at an Austrian restaurant that serves up a fantastic Argentinian menu. The meal did involve a fair amount of vino in the middle of the day. By the end of it, I was definitely feeling my Fairy Godmother wings!

Here are some pics from lunch at Patagonia Argentinisches Steakhaus:

The size of the steak knife suggested big things were to come

The 500g steak. You order the steak by weight and then add whatever you want to eat with it.

My meal - a 200g steak with broccoli and wild rice. Unpictured - both Champagne and a fine Malbec (one for each hand..).

The mushroom sauce that I ordered with my meal. I love it when the sauce is not already all over the food. It's a sign that they know the sauce is a condiment to enhance the already tasty food, not there as a cover-up.

The man of the moment and his Granddaddy (Opi).

Im Palast

On the way home from Spieleland (yesterday's post) we stopped for dinner at the Im Palast restaurant. This is located in a mediaeval palace in Hohenems, Austria - quite close to the Liechtenstein border.

Apparently it has a hausgeist (ghost). We didn't see him, but we did see the biggest beer I've ever encountered outside of a coming of age party.

Funky beer glasses seem to be a feature of the restaurant. Here is the bro-in-law with his one.

While eating, we were 'serenaded' by some sort of wild beer party going on in a pub across the road. It seemed to be a loud mix of German Folk Music and American Rock Classics, all sung at loud volume by what sounded to be a large crowd having a sehr gut time.

Over in the biergarten, we were eyeing up the menu. Seeing too many unfamiliar words, I cheated and asked for an English version. I was pleased to see that all over the menu were little boxes explaining how much care they take to use spring water and various specialised, healthy condiments, such Himilayan rock salt.

Sistasana and I ordered the 'wheelbarrow', which was a seafood dish for two. It arrived in a wheelbarrow, which is probably the traditional mediaeval way of delivering fish.... (?)

I forgot to photograph it before we dug in, but the selection was impressive - perch, salmon, tuna and prawns, on a steamed rice with veges.

We had a little language problem when, in attempting to order white wine, we actually ordered the white wine foam - a sort of sauce for the fish. 

As you can see on the Im Palast website (www.palast.at), one of the cool things that happens at this palace is mediaeval nights, where you party like it's 1499. Lots of meat on the bone and wine goes down with a side of authentic palace atmosphere and properly dressed serving wenches. I'm not sure if we will get to do that this trip, but it's been put on the 'to-do if time and budget allows it' list.  Maybe (if the wine is flowing like it should) we will see the hausegeist! I hope he is not camera shy. Ghost pics would add that little extra something to my blogging.

Travel Food

Halli Hallo, yes, that's a very delicious pic, oder? One of my favourite things about travel is encountering the foods of a different place or culture. Even the simple task of supermarket shopping becomes full of wonder and excitement.  I always want to try everything. I'll be posting later on Sanaworld about how I do this without letting my ass get enormous.

Some of my most loved foodie things about this part of the world are: pastries (as above) and bread - things which do not feature heavily in my regular life. The variety in the Liechtenstein-Switzerland area is astounding and they are fresh baked every day in the Bäkerei and most supermarkets.  With the bread particularly, there is a treasure chest of organic and wheat-free varieties, as well as traditionally fermented. I was musing over Dunkelbrot (mm.. I wonder what this one is made of..?), when Miss J grabbed it from my hand, placed it in the trolley and said 'that means dark bread, you will like it, can we go now?' I believe I may have been loitering past the patience level of a 5-and-a-half year old.

Other favourites I have become reacquainted with this week:

90% Lindt. You just can't get this in NZ. I will be bringing a bunch of it home with me, including some for a Sanaworld blog giveaway.

Bircher Muesli in a pot:

Organic yogurts and quark. You can get organic yogurt in NZ, but the selection is limited. Cherry is oh-so-yum. Organic quark is not something I have seen in my homeland at all. Even getting non-organic quark is a little difficult sometimes:

I also found coloured eggs, which I've never seen before. They are pre-hardboiled, for picnics in the alps and so on.

I was also once again awed by the processed meats selection. This photo represents about 1/4 of the chilled area devoted to all things salami, prosciutto and kaiserfleish in the local Coop. Meats and cheeses are a very big deal in this region, far more so than I ever noticed in other parts of Europe.

The local sodium consumption must be off the charts.

Today my plans include walking the Kulturweg, which takes in the arty parts of Schaan, which is the most populated town in Liechtenstein and, according to tourismus.li, the most cultured. I'm sure today will also contain quite a bit of German language cartoon watching, bike riding, food cooking and caffe trinken in the sun. Can't complain... :)