Italia: Milan and Florence, Tuscany.

We have just come back from a wonderful week in Italy. We went to see two Italian friends of ours and to celebrate an early wedding anniversary, as my husband is heading off to Copenhagen on Sunday for a week.
We took the train from Zürich to Milan, which was a very scenic route and far nicer than the route to Geneve in my humble opinion. 

We decided that next Summer we should come back down to Lugano (where this lake is) and go camping as there are a few camping grounds right at the lake edge.

Once we got to Milan, we stopped for a look around and had some lunch before heading on to Florence (Firenze). Our old neighbour from Atlanta is from Florence and is spending her Summer there. Florence is the biggest city in Tuscany and it is so beautiful. It has a river running through it and has an amazing artistic, historic and cultural heritage. Our accommodation was in the old city and just a short walk to all the attractions such as shops, museums, square, statues etc.

We booked our accommodation through a great website we found, http://www.airbnb.com/ Here you can book any kind of accommodation you like, anywhere in the world, and for any amount of time. All you have to do is type in the name of the city you're going to and the dates you want to stay and it brings up a list of options. We had a private room and bathroom in someone's home and the cost included a lovely breakfast in the garden each morning.

After we settled into our accommodation and had had a look around, we met up with our friend, had dinner and enjoyed Florence by night, which was made even nicer with the wonderful warm weather, and of course no trip to Italy would be complete without Gelato and I definitely had my fair share of it by the time we went home.

Florence is know for its leather and jewelery, the markets being the place to find leather goods and the old shops the place to find the largest pieces of jewelery you could ever hope to find. The store fronts were fantastic with their old style shutters and the jewelery inside was just as incredible (the purple fish is a bracelet).

Here are a few shots from around the town:

On our first night, our friend took us up to the top of a nearby hill so we could get a good view of the city. We had drinks up there and watched a beautiful sunset.

The large domed Cathedral you can see in these shots is the Florence Cathedral, and it is quite simply the most beautiful cathedral I have ever seen.

After a wonderful time exploring the city of Florence, our friend took us out on a day trip into the Tuscan countryside and to a Ravioli festival. Her friend was a wonderful tour guide and told us about all sorts of things along the way. It took about 3 hours to get to the festival but it was another beautiful day and the countryside was lovely.

We had a lovely setting for the festival in amongst chestnut trees.

Afterward we went on a little tour of the town and to a home of a friend of our friend, a home that was built around the 13th or 14th Century.

After a great day we headed back to Florence, stopping for dinner and a sunset along the way. We had good food at a fraction of the price it would cost in Zürich.

After such a wonderful time it was sad to leave Florence but we had one more destination and one more friend to see, so we packed ourselves up and got on a morning train to Verona. More on Verona in the next blog....

Bern

Today I went to Switzerland's capital, Bern, as I had some baby items to collect. As I hadn't been there before I decided to make a day trip out of it and go and see some of the well known sights.

The first stop was to the The Kindlifresserbrunnen, or "Fountain of the Eater of Little Children". The  sculpture is an ogre devouring a child and at his side is a bag containing more children. Under that is an army of bears. I have to say I was expecting it to be bigger than it was, but it's a fun statue all the same.

Just around the corner from here is the Zeitglockenturm (Clock Tower), a huge clock which is also an astronomical clock. Just before the hour, the mechanical figures start to move.

On the main street of the Old Town, is the home where Albert Einstein worked out the Theory of Relativity. There's a 6chf charge to go in and see the home, and there's not a lot to see, but he really did have a fantastic location.

Street views from Einstein's house

From here, it's another short walk to Bern's late-Gothic cathedral. I was quite impressed with the detail in this cathedral. There were wonderful carvings on the seats, and some great statues on the outside too. (Double click  on a photo to see details)

 From here, I headed off to see the famous residents of Bern, the bears. Fortunately, their old home, the pit, is no longer used and they now at least have some trees to climb and a part of the river to swim in. 

In the old pit, there is a small shop which also has a collection of items that were dropped into the pit over the years. Among the sunglasses and cameras was a pair of denchers, a bra, and a can of silly string!

By this time, I was quite tired but I still had one more place to go, the Paul Klee Centre. There is a huge collection of the Swiss artist's work here, but once there, I decided that this would have to be something to tackle another day. The building itself however, was worth the trip. 

This weekend there is a festival on in Zürich, so I might take the camera out on another mission tomorrow and see what there is to see.