December 2019 – Merrans travels

Bologna

I caught the train to Bologna today which is 40 mins east of Florence, so an easy day trip. It’s a less polished city, but full of charm and famous for being one of the best food destinations in Italy (think mortadella sausage, tiny tortellini, prosciutto, parmigiano Reggiano, Modena balsamic and Bolognese sauce among other things). There are also several kilometres of covered porticos everywhere, so even if the weather is bad you will be dry, or cool if it is a hot day, and you can enjoy walking off the food 🙂 It’s about a 20 minute walk from the central station to the Piazza Maggiore where you’ll find the San Petronio cathedral and Neptune’s fountain. The cathedral is so so inside, but around the back you can access the roof terrace and get awesome views across the terracotta rooftops for only a few euros. Well worth it, and much less scary (and less busy) than climbing up the leaning tower across town. From the piazza I headed for the area around Via Draperie where the best food can be found. The pizza from the mercato is amazing. I’d had a look online at different blogs about Bologna and where I could head to for a decent walk (always good to see what other people have loved about a place). The Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca sits on top of a hill looking over Bologna, and you can walk the whole way there under the covered porticos which is cool. It’s a 7.5km round trip up and back and a really nice walk. You can pay to go up to the top of the cathedral dome when you’re up there, but today it was foggy so the views wouldn’t have been great. Tomorrow is new year’s eve and the trains are FULL of people heading to their families or holiday destinations. Florence is also bristling with shiny happy people. I’ve organised to join an Eatwith dinner experience tomorrow, which is basically like booking a seat at a table and other guests do the same, and you all have a cool evening. I’ve done it in other cities and it has always been amazing, and it will be nice to be in the company of good people as the new year arrives. Might need an afternoon nap so I don’t nod off 🙂 🙂

Florence, Italy

I love Florence, it is a gorgeously compact city and it’s so beautiful. I had a few days here in 2015 on my tour around Italy and it made a big impression. I’m not normally much of a shopper, especially for girly things, but Florence unleashed a beast 🙂 In the department store Rinascente, a lovely salesman had decided I needed an hour long perfume exploration to find just the right scent for me (such an Italian thing to do, walking backwards and forwards through wafts of scent laughing and enjoying the moment), and to this day I still wear the Versace perfume he recommended. I bought beautiful cast bronze earrings from a local jeweler. I discovered the Desigual brand and bought a denim jacket that I still wear and love. Leather bags. Lovely underwear….in fact on that trip I bought so many things in quick succession that I had to take myself for a time out 🙂 About a year after that trip I lost one of the earrings at an outdoor movie night and was gutted! So I tracked down the jeweler online and asked if she had more of them and she did! But paying for them and getting them shipped was tricky, and ultimately too hard. SO….when I was thinking about where next and Florence came up in my search I thought ha I can buy myself another pair! Which, in truth, is the real reason I decided to come here for the new year. The fact I love the city is a wonderful bonus 🙂 My train arrived late afternoon and there were even more people than in Milan, in a much smaller space! Getting to my hotel with a suitcase was like navigating the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course 🙂 but as soon as I was checked in and freshened up, I was out on the hunt for my jeweler. Maps and directions I am completely hopeless with, but my memory of places and navigating is apparently bang on. I knew exactly where I was, and once on the right street it was just a matter of hoping the shop was still there. And open on a Sunday night. And it was! And there was one pair of my earrings there! I picked them off the wall and took them to the counter with a huge smile on my face and launched into a long explanation to the man about my previous visit, the lost earring, my attempts to get another set and finally being here I could replace them. ‘Buona sera signora, prego’, he said (not understanding a word I had said). So I shook his hand and said grazie mille, paid and left. I know from my previous visit that his wife makes the bronze jewelry from wax casts, and that he is an artist, but he could see I was happy, and he was happy that I was happy. I spent the next few hours revisiting some of the places I had loved when I was here last, and they are still the same, nothing much has changed in 5 years. Which is kind of nice. Strange to be so far from home but be in a place that feels so familiar and no need for Google maps. I’m going to love my few days here 🙂 Va bene 🙂

Florence is also still decked out from Christmas

Milan

I spent a month in Italy in 2015 but didn’t make it to Milan, and only booked a night here this time on my way from Switzerland. What a cool city. What huge crowds of people! Milan is all lit up from Christmas still, the Christmas markets are in full swing, carols are playing, EVERYONE was out walking and enjoying the evening when I arrived. After a few hours on trains I was up for a decent walk and spent three hours walking around before finding a table for dinner. Being in the fashion capital of the world is a bit dangerous for someone who is bored with her suitcase of clothes 🙂 but I managed to leave without buying anything except some limoncello nougat. Although if the shop with the amazingly beautiful boots (pic below) had been open I would have probably sold a kidney to buy them 🙂 and the skirt they were paired with. Milan also seems to be the cake capital. And the source of the rubber ducks I’ve been seeing everywhere on my travels. I would come back here again, it’s a cool city to visit and wander in. Everyone I met was super nice. The taxi drivers were awesome. Stay in the city center if you can and walk everywhere. Taxi from the central station is only 10 Euro or you can take the metro. And eat in trattoria down the side streets, the food is good. Buona sera.

Spiez

The downside to booking things on the fly is that sometimes you can’t take a direct route to your destination. To reach Italy from Zermatt I had booked 3 different trains, and had a lot of switching. Which is how I came to have a couple of hours in Spiez, a pretty Swiss town on the shores of Lake Thun (pic below). The sun was shining, I had a custard square, and looked at the view. When it was time to catch my train to Milan I felt very rested. Until we stopped at the station I had switched trains in to go to Spiez 🙂 🙂 and realised I could have been in Milan hours earlier 🙂 Anyhoo. The train ride to Milan from Switzerland is just stunning, from the dramatic snowy mountains to the northern Italian lakes (Maggiore and Lugano). Wow. I’ll come back another time to explore that area, and Lake Como as well. Put them on your list.

Cuckoo

For as little as 250 swiss francs (382 NZD) you can own your own cuckoo clock, with chiming bird and dancing people. For fancier varieties with maybe a prancing St Bernard you’ll need to spend from 1950 francs (2999 NZD) to 6000 francs (9169 NZD). Plus postage. Bargain. And they go off every hour on the hour 🙂 Able to be posted to anywhere in the world of course 🙂 🙂 I have given these a miss but have picked up a swiss army knife called the Huntsman that among other things can open bottles of wine, file my nails, cut string and saw small branches 🙂 because you never know when you’ll need to do that. Just need to figure out how to use it now.

Beach time in NZ

Summer is all about the beach where I live and it looks like the weather is mint. Max loves the beach and has his favourite places to stop and sniff and pee. We go walking there twice a day and it is beautiful. Always risky though when there are people picnicking on the sand, and the smell of their food makes him deaf to your voice. Last year we had the ‘chicken incident’, when he tore off across the beach, over someone’s lawn, into their house (where dozens of fancy people were having a fancy party), ran around them all, jumped onto a dining chair, grabbed a piece of chicken from the table and ran off with it. By the time I got there the deed had been done and I was so apologetic. The lady laughed and said ‘it happens all the time dahling, but we like to leave the doors open for the breeze’. Mortifying. He is always on lead in that area now. Big kiss maximum xxx

Way up high

The skies were clear again today, perfect for a cable car ride up to the highest accessible peak, the Klein Matterhorn which is 3883m high. I really don’t like being in cable cars because they sway and hang by one arm, and people like to jump up and down in them which has to be the stupidest thing in the world to do. And I don’t like heights. Today I had a nice couple from Singapore in the cabin with me for the first part of the ride, and they chatted away to me while I had a death grip on the seat. No photos were taken on the ride up because I was trying just to breathe. The ride to the summit is 45 mins so it’s a long time to not breathe properly! Some parts were so scary I was too scared even to shut my eyes. Especially the final lift up to the summit. But once at the top with my feet on the ground it was so worth it. The views are incredible. You are eye level with the mountain peaks, and it is still and quiet. This is also the highest place in the world to ski from I believe, with several trails heading down into either Switzerland or Italy. So cool. I felt a bit bolder on the journey down and took heaps of photos, and stopped off 800m below the summit for some food and a glass of wine in the sun, looking at the Matterhorn. So pleased I made myself go up it was amazing. Thanks Marg for the pep talk this morning. Unfortunately I have hurt my neck and had to cancel the ski lesson I had planned for tomorrow which is a bloody pain because I love going fast down hills and was really looking forward to it. It’s too sore though, and I’ll only hurt it more. Hopefully resting it and some anti-inflammatories and heat packs will bring it right. Tonight the snow has returned, and tomorrow is forecast snow showers all day so I will go wandering in it before I pack my bags for the next morning. Next stop (which I decided and booked tonight 🙂 ) is a brief one in Milan before I head to Florence for new years (also decided and booked tonight ha). I’ve visited Florence before and I love it, and it felt like just the right place to see in a new decade.

Merry Christmas to you

Christmas Day started with lovely messages and well wishes from home, and a video chat with Jen and Max. So nice to see them both and to catch up on how things are at home. Jen is the best daughter. She was wearing one of my skirts which made me laugh, but it looked so much better on her so it has found a new home. Max looked so cute (and sleepy), but dogs cannot see people on screen so he wouldn’t have known I was there. Today the skies were clear of clouds and brilliant blue, and the mountains and Matterhorn were in full view. Amazing. I didn’t think this town could get any prettier. I bought myself a 2 day pass to visit the mountain and make unlimited use of the cable cars and the train that goes to the main summit. I put off the cable car until tomorrow (chicken), and caught the train to Gornergrat which is 3089m high. Quite brisk up there 🙂 but amazing views across the ranges, and there are restaurants where you can warm up with something hot. I had a chat to a couple from Oregon who are en route to Germany for their daughters 50th birthday. ‘Honey this young lady is from New Zealand, why I can’t think of anywhere that is further than that’. 🙂 The train stops at 6 stations on the way up and down the mountain, and I hopped up and down all day. On spur of the moment I decided to do a 1.6km hike across one of the mountain passes, from Rotenboden at 2815m to Riffelberg which is 300m lower down. I think I took 200 photos just on that walk 🙂 so stunning. And so much fun to sit and slide down the steep parts of the track. The snow is quite deep in some places, usually discovered when your leg sinks thigh deep and you have to crawl out. So glad I am well prepared with my winter boots, thermals and waterproof gear. Lots of people were out enjoying the weather today, and dogs leaping through the snow looking goofy. Soundtrack for the day is quite Christmassy – a medley of Walking through a winter wonderland, Merry Christmas to you, Grandma got run over by a reindeer, and All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth 🙂 Happy Christmas everyone, I hope the holiday season is good to you. xx

Christmas Eve

The snow was so heavy this morning that the ploughs could not keep up, but it was magical to walk through. Later in the day the skies cleared, and suddenly the mountains were visible. So majestic! The Matterhorn was still covered in cloud by the time the sun went down, but I think it will be on show tomorrow so I’m going to head up the mountain. Christmas Eve is the big day here, more than Christmas Day, and families have huge feasts and exchange gifts. This is only one of maybe 3 Christmases I have not spent with Jen and I miss her (and the poodle!) We have a tradition where each Christmas we pick a different country and cook food from there for lunch. Last year we made stuffed bao and Vietnamese salads, the year before that was a Japanese hibachi grill, and the year before that I think we chose China. Or Mexico. She has a better memory than me for these things 🙂 We will catch up on video chat on Christmas Day, but it isn’t the same. To get my fix of family time and connection I went to the local church, which was so packed with people there was standing room only. I don’t follow a religion, and my German is not very good, but it was a lovely thing to do and felt very Christmassy, and language is kind of irrelevant when people are gathered together to feel uplifted. And we sang Christmas carols. They were in German, but I recognised the tunes so went off piste and sang my little heart out in English.

A very white Christmas

My lovely driver from yesterday picked me up early this morning so I could catch my train to Zermatt, and he would not take my money because he said it was my turn to receive some kindness 🙂 so nice! The trains are very easy to figure out in Switzerland, and everything is very orderly and on time. I had a two hour journey from Basel to Visp (via Bern), before changing trains for the final hour to Zermatt. The countryside looked so beautiful as the train whizzed past raging rivers, huge snow-capped mountains, beautiful lakes, rolling green hills, small villages and farms. Zermatt is a swanky ski resort town, sitting at an altitude of 5310 feet at the foot of the Matterhorn (the jagged tooth mountain that inspired the toblerone 🙂 ), and surrounded by mountains. Being so high up snow is pretty much guaranteed at this time of year, and as the train started to climb the ground became less green and more white, and then all white, and then it snowed. So cool. I LOVE snow and this is the perfect place to come for a white Christmas. Today was -1 but if you’re dressed for it, it doesn’t feel cold. No sign of the Matterhorn today as the clouds were too thick, and tomorrow is expected to be the same. Christmas Day has a forecast of sunshine though, so it will be a good day to head up the mountain with my camera to take some photos. Being a resort town, nothing shuts even for Christmas, which is perfect for me. And there’s a huge choice of food options from Michelin star restaurants to street food, and a couple of supermarkets (which is where I went 🙂 ) if you want to cook. There are loads of people here, and a lot of happy skiers. And a few people on crutches who have taken a tumble, but still look happy. I’m keen for some tobogganing.