Bellano & Its Gorge (05/16/2012)

For my first solo adventure outside of the Colico area, I took the car three towns south to visit the village of Bellano.

The town itself was very picturesque, but what Bellano is known for is its gorge (the Orrido).

Entrance to the Orrido

We'd had plenty of rain, so the waterfalls were at full force

On the ledge overlooking the gorge there is pentagonal building which they call the House of the Devil.  Supposedly back in the day it was used for all sorts of illicit meetings and rituals.

As you may have noticed by now, if there's a historical marker, I'm going to stop and take pictures.  In Bellano the other two attractions were of the Church of Saints Nazaro & Celso and the Temple of Saint Rocco.  Below are photos of the church.

See, this means its important =-)

If you look closely you can see the entrance to the Orrido just up those stairs, and the church runs along the left

I always like the mosaics and painting they do on the walls and ceiling of the church itself

Below are photos of the temple of Saint Rocco.  They temple seems to be dedicated to all fallen war heroes from Bellano.

Temple dedicated to the memory of those fallen in all the wars.

Sorry this was the best view I could get you of the inside of the temple.

Weekend in Milano (05/11-05/12/2012)

Since Milan is only about an hour south of us, we decided to take a little weekend trip into the city to check out the sights.  Since parking is REALLY expensive (50 euros/night at our hotel) we parked at one of the commuter lots outside the city and took the subway in.  This method of transportation worked really well, so I think this will be our standard practice when visiting Milan.

Once we made it into the city, our first stop had to be the Duomo (cathedral).  Unfortunately it happened to be a really hot day, so we had both worn shorts which are not allowed inside the Duomo.  Next time we'll be more prepared, so we can actually get shots inside the Duomo as well.

 We climbed the stairs to the roof of the Duomo and were able to get some really cool shots up there.

View of the Galleria from the room of the Duomo.

 We also went over to the Milan Galleria to do some really expensive window shopping (Louis Vuitton, Prada, etc.)

Hey Mom, look what we found

 We thought we'd try to squeeze in a little culture while we were in Milan, so we headed over to the large Brera Picture Gallery (Pinacoteca di Brera).  Since it was a picture gallery, this meant the whole museum was dedicated to paintings, drawings, etc. with very few sculptures (though sculptures are what I got photos of, since they were outside the actual museum).

Pinacoteca di Brera

 

Next we took a walk through the Castello Sforzesco and the very busy Parco Sempione.  They were actually playing some worship songs that we knew in the park but they were all in Italian, so that was kind of neat.

Castello Sforzesco

Parco Sempione

 

Thanks to a really good last minute deal online, we were able to get a swanky room at the Westin Palace hotel.

Ready for our night on the town!

In the morning, the last place I had on my list for us to check out was the Basilica of San Ambrogio.  What I didn't count on was though it is a museum, it was still a very much functioning church.  We'll have to come back next time on a Saturday to check out the inside of the Basilica.

Oops, I think we're a little under dressed.

The Sights of Olgiasca

I had some pictures from our day to day activities around Olgiasca (the hill/village our hotel is located on) that I thought might be fun to share with you guys.  Here you go...

First, I did eventually make it back to the Abbazia (they have good panini (sandwiches)), and was able to get some pictures of the inside of the chapel for you guys....as well a quick shot of some of the "locals"

Relief on the wall inside the chapel

I think they called this the "cloister" outside of the chapel

 

The abbazia "locals"

We also found some hiking trails going up to the top of Olgiasca, so we were able to do some hiking after Derrick got off work.

View from the top of Olgiasca

Derrick was able to get some better pictures of the kite surfers from the beach during a particularly windy Sunday we had.

During one of my walks down to the Abbazia in search of un panino, I encountered a herd of sheep that had gotten loose.  I'm not sure where they came from, because I had never seen a herd of sheep in Olgiasca before this and I have not encountered them since then.

"Mary had a....

little lamb, little lamb, little lamb..."

At one point a dog came along and chased them up this hill where they stayed bleating until the dog's owner came and got him.  Hopefully the sheep's owner found them eventually as well.