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