Our First Day

Our First Day
Our first real day was on Monday (7-31) We woke up at around 9:00 and ate a quick breakfast of coffee and toast at Monica's house. Even though Monica was on Vacation in the mountains with her family she stayed the night with us and took us up to a small castle that is nearby. In Bellinzona there are 3 castles and this is the smallest one that is up higher in the mountains and overlooks the city. Monica's sister (Paola) is an architect in Venice, Italy and was actually commissioned to remodel parts of this castle. It was a major project that took her 3 years to complete. I will add some photo's in here later once I have time to finish up the last few weddings and then I can process the vacation shots.

After that we went to Biasca which is a very small town about 20 miles from Bellinzona. There are about 6,000 people in Biacsa and only about 17,000 in Bellinzona.
Biasca is where my Grandfather grew up and also where my Grandmothers mother is from, so I still have lots of family members there. We ate Lunch at Sidonia and Guliano's house and he cooked us a wonderful plate of lasagna. We also drank some of his own wine that he produced (they make a wonderful Merlot in Ticino) straight from the vines in his front yard. We had to finish the lunch off with some coffee (espresso style of course) topped off with some homemade Grappa. Sidonia and Guliano don't speak any english but Monica was there to translate, and since they speak with such emotion and hand gestures you can figure out pretty much what they are saying. They both came to Santa Cruz maybe 15 years ago but where exactly as I remembered them. Guliano is such a happy, joyous man he just brings a smile to your face.

After that we went back to Monica's and she went to be back with her family on Vacation. She left us with the keys to her sisters older car so we could cruise it around.

We took a quick nap for about an hour and then headed back in the car to Biasca.
I got a little lost and got on the wrong freeway first but after about a 30 minute delay were on the correct road. We arrived back at Sidonia's and they took us to another relatives house for dinner (will have to add the name back later when i remember :)

We had another wonderful meal here with fresh vegetables, fruit and some more meats like Carne Seca and Carne Cruda and Prucittio. It was a very refreshing meal with lots of protien and very few carbs. Most of our meals in Switzerland were very similar and we loved the food, it was so fresh.

A few other family members came by after dinner so we stayed awhile and ate dessert and drank a few more coffee's with Grappa.


More to come later,
Mark

European Vacation

More about our whirlwind trip

Before I start forgetting things I am going to write down my memories from my trip. 

The trip started out on a coffee filled whim one morning.  I was just sitting at my desk about to start working and my wife kept asking me when we are going to take a vacation.  I kept saying things are too busy right now maybe we should wait until next year and she wouldn't take that for an answer.  I opened up my calendar and started to see that next year was getting very busy for weddings already and we might not have more than one week off to travel.  Looking at this summers schedule August, September and October were full but I did have 2 weeks at the end of July to take off.  I told her "let's just take off to Europe for 2 weeks" and she got all excited.

So that began our journey.  Over the next week we had to get expedited passports for her and Andrew (lisa's cousin who lives with us), call Delta Miles to redeem our miles we have accured over the last few years for 3 FREE round trip tickets :)
and a day after getting the tickets were off to Zurich, Switzerland.

Since we were using mile tickets that were secured last minute our trip out there was pretty interesting.  We flew out at 6:00 am from San Jose to Portland Oregon.  Then a few hours later flew back to Ca to LAX.  Then after a few more hours waiting at LAX flew to Ansterdam and a few more hours wait to our final detination of Zurich, Switzerland.

After arriving in Zurich we had one hour to find the main train station and catch our train to Bellinzona (about a 3 hour train ride to southern Switzerland).
Luckily the people at the airport spoke english and showed us where to get a train at the airport to the main Zurich station.  When arriving at Zurich we had about 10 minutes to find the next train and got on that one no problem.  The only thing was we didn't know that we got in the first class car and when the ticket guy came by he had to move us to the 2nd class section.  (we learned so much about train travel on this trip, more to come about that later when I talk about the experience we had a few times in the Milan station trying to get in the right seats).

After about an hour we had to get off in a small little station and transfer to another train that left in a few minutes, that was pretty hectic but we did barely make it onto the final train to Bellinzona.  We arrived there on Sunday at 8:00 local time and were greeted at the Train station by my Cousin Monica and her mother Sodonia.  They took us to Monica's house in Bellinzona where we stayed for the next week.  They also had dinner ready for us outside and it was a wonderful spread of meats (Carne Seca), fresh tomatoes, and good Swiss cheese.  It was a wonderful, fresh meal and so great to be greeted by family that were all so adorable and hospitable.  One thing that this trip did teach me is that people really make the difference in your life, a vacation without all of the wonderful family and friends that we met wouldn't have been the same at all.

That was our trip there and I will write down more a little bit later.