| Dario & Paola built this gorgeous house themselves! |
| Erin's Lake Como Journals 6-22-02, Part 2 Dario & Paola were waiting for us as we departed the train, and we caught up in the car on the way to their beautiful home. They built it themselves, on top of a hill near the gorgeous Lake Como and surrounded by mountains & greenery. They also have hens & geese for fresh eggs every morning, plus a variety of vegetables & fruits - this place was heaven! After settling in and showering (it had been 2 days of traveling & sweating for us by now!), we dressed coolly and went out to see a local festival on the lake. What luck in arriving just in time for that! We drove about an hour around a branch of the lake before getting stopped in traffic on the narrow road, so we quickly found a spot to park and walked the approx. 5 kilometers to the town hosting the event. We found a couple of live bands playing polka-style music, along with a large BBQ area and picnic spot. We spread our blanket like the rest of the crowd, ordered food, and sat to wait for the fireworks. Sure enough, around 10:30pm there was a big boom from the island right offshore to get our attention, and then a fantastic fireworks display commenced over the water. It was immense and glorious! I couldn't keep from smiling - it beat almost every 4th of July celebration I've ever seen! The show went on for about 25 minutes, with cheering from the crowd at especially wonderful explosions. Afterward, we walked down to the waterfront to hear a rock band that Dario & Paola knew, which were pretty good actually. Their power cut out after about 4 songs though, and while they were trying to fix it, I started realizing how tired I was. We left to meet up with Dario's brother, who would give him a ride back to the car to pick us up. Instead, we ended up at a bit of a family reunion for another 45 minutes or so, which was fun but hard to follow (in Italian - we were still thinking in Spanish from the past month, and I was surprised how much Italian I'd forgotten in that time!). We did find a ride to the car for all of us at once though, so we piled in around midnight and were driven the 5km back to the car, where Dario took over driving and I passed out in the back seat. We arrived back at the house after 1am and quickly made up the couch bed, then made no delays at falling asleep! |
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