Italia 2011!!!

Get ready to embark on the greatest vacation that has ever been taken since the invention of vacations. I am only going to post about 1 or 2 days at time cause I'm already sleepy and I just started. The pictures are not all in order and I'm too lazy to figure it out. The picture above is the first thing I saw when I sat up in bed the first morning in Lake Como. Pretty serene if I do say so myself. Buon' Viaggio!

This is the gallery in Milan by the famous La Scala opera house. This was actually the second day but again too lazy.

Rachy just munchin' some gelato. We had our fair share of gelato breaks.

You are supposed to spin all the way around on this bull's danglys without putting your foot down for good luck. Needless to say good luck was not achieved by Rachel.

We climbed to the roof of the Duomo in Milan on the second day. This church took around 400 years to complete and is pretty awesome.

Ok so when we arrived in Italy we went straight to Lake Como in the base of the Italian Alps. I took a pic of a couple making out and Rachel near them hoping the idea would rub off on her.

Just one of the hundreds of beautiful houses surrounding Lake Como. We stayed at a fishing village called Lezzeno in an old fisherman's wharf and lodge that has been renovated to a bed and breakfast called Nest on the Lake. I mean Jim from the office got married in Lake Como so you know its gotta be sweet.

This is the way into our room from the street. Who needs room to not get hit by cars I always say. It was way quiet believe it or not though. That is our car on the left Silver Lightning.

It was a little rainy the first day at the lake but overall the weather of the trip couldn't have been more perfect. I was still sweaty the entire time but for normal people it was perfect.

The hunchback of the Duomo of Milan.

This is a little restaurant where we ate twice. It was amazing! I had pasta all' amatriciana the first night and a creamy risotto with local caught fish the second. Rachel had a Carbonara and something else. This place was definitely one of the best places we ate.

The right view from our balcony

We went to Bellaggio and Varenna on a little boat the first day. We were both dead tired from jet lag though.

The left view from our balcony

It was really peaceful in Lezzeno. We wish we would have spent another night on the lake but you know what they say...hindsight makes you wish you had spent another night on the lake.

This is Bellagio or Varenna. We were pretty out of it right then.

Rachel on the way to Varenna. Bellagio is in the background. She never really did get over jet lag as evidenced by the amount of time I spent singing to myself in the car while she was dead asleep. the picture below is of these flowers that I feel like all of Northern Italy smells like this time of year. Not sure what it is called but it smells great. Stay tuned for the Cinque Terre and the Ligurian coast....or don't. whatever.