Lago d'Orta

Perhaps you don't need me to say this. Perhaps it's obvious, but oh, is it beautiful here! 

(From our balcony: morning light)

The hotel room at Laqua turns out to be composed of two spaces -- sleeping and living, and the length of both is flanked by a spacious balcony with several seating options. If I had to recognize one quality that the hotel seems to strive for it's this -- a peaceful serenity that allows you to exhale to the fullest.

Not that it can be achieved by spacial surroundings alone. There are always interferences, physical and mental. For instance, I'm sure late sleepers are going to protest the digger that is cutting into the stone of the nearby mountain side. Put put put. From 8:30 til noon, when they break for a three hour lunch. We were already done with breakfast by the earlier hour, but only one other person was with us in the dining area so you can imagine that the rest were still nursing hangovers or recovering in their rooms from the exertion of reading by the pool. Put put put. (on the upside, the soundproofing here is total. Close the window and you have silence.)

Or, how about the squeal coming from my little one as a fly lands on her bread during breakfast? Did you hear it? The point is, we are so screened back home, even at the farmhouse, that flies walking over our foods is a rare occurrence. Not so in al fresco dining in Italy. Bzzz, land. Every meal.

These are the funny little things that make me smile because they tell us we are alive and not cardboard figures trying to avoid every aspect of life except for that which gives us comfort.

I also have a tentative comment on who comes to these parts to vacate. I hear some English, I hear lots of Italian. I dont quite distinguish Italian accents but I would bet all the sweet booties in your closet that there are a lot of Milanese here. I always thought that Milan people were stiffer than those you'll meet in just about any other region of the country. They don't crack a smile unless you really pump the Negronis and spritzes and Prosecco's into  them come evening. If a waiter calls your child principessa in Milan it's because he is not really from Milan. He just came to work there. I'm sure there are plenty of lovely people in Milan, they're just awfully stressed in my opinion.

So, I prompt Squirms to speak quietly here as I would in France, rather than as I would not in the rest of Italy.

On the upside, the people at Aqua (my hotel) are lovely. Absolutely lovely and full of understanding and helpful compassion. A+ for dealing with Nonna and granddaughter -- a combination that one still rarely sees in travel.

About our day:

First came the night with the usual middle of the night wake up. It's always like that when you suddenly switch to the European clock. I told Snowdrop to go to the other room and read a book. She did that and came back sleepy. How nice to share space with a seven year old!

Breakfast on the terrace. 

What abundance! Rolls, sweet rolls, eggs, fruits, yogurts, pound cake. And this is a first -- the waiter brings us a Sacher torte baked with the signature Cannavaciuolo tag.

A beautiful beginning to the day.

Remember -- this may well be the last sunny day here. It is also very warm. By afternoon we are at 88F (31C) and the sun is strong. On the one hand, I want to do everything outdoorsy that is on our "must do" list today. On the other hand, the sun wears you out. Still, let's start ambitiously. 

We walk over a short distance to the ferry stop and wait for the boat that goes down to Orta San Giulio. 

(The selfie: proof of my existence!)

This is a much pleasanter way to travel "to town" than by car. Ten minutes along the water and you're there. But, you are tied to the ferry schedule. Or, you book a taxi way in advance to get back home at a different hour, making wild guesses as to the time you'll be ready to call it quits. In either case, you're tied to a predetermined schedule.

Here's our beautiful boat ride:

We don't go first to town, we go instead get off at the island in the middle of the lake: Isola San Giulio with the Basilica San Giulio and an old seminary which is now a Benedictine Monastery with cloister nuns living there. 

One path circumvents the island and there are signs everywhere about the importance of silence to a good life.

I'm not sure Snowdrop buys into the whole thing of living in silence. She is not especially a loud child, except when a fly lands on her bread, so it hardly matters, but still -- kids don't really get the meditative aspects of a peaceful mind and a quiet heart.

We stop at a gift shop, because for Snowdrop gift shops are super fun. She wants a yoyo and a fan. 

I never had a yo-yo! 

You'll not play with it. 

Please!!! I buy it. She plays with it.

We then take the boat to Orta San Giulio. 

(Captain of the ferry)

This is your quintessential picturesque town... 

... whose primary function these days is probably tourism. You hear English, you hear Italian. Actually lots of Italian.

We buy gelato on the main Square.

(This one's for me: peaches and strawberries)

(She always takes chocolate)

From here (Piazza Motta), we walk along a street... 

... that should eventually lead us to Sacro Monte d'Orta. This is a devotional complex with 31 chapels and 370 statues done by various Lombardy sculptors, including those who worked on Milan's Duomo. 

(Talk about devotional -- too hot and too unnecessary to hide the fact that there comes a time when we must feed our babies)

Initially, Snowdrop is willing to do the hike, but as the heat sets in, her enthusiasm wanes. We pause, we go to a toy store..,.

Nope, she'd rather not make the (admittedly uphill) spiritual journey. And I'm okay with that. We linger, we sip some beverages, and then I call off the taxi. There's no reason to spend more time here. Despite the beauty of the narrow streets, you feel the heat. She feels the heat.

I think about how Nietzsche fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salome, a Russian psychoanalyst and writer here, in this town, many decades ago and I think how it must have been in another season.

(Waiting for the boat: a good view onto the Island we'd visited...)

(At the boat stop: tell me that these people are not Milanese!)

We take the boat home to our village.

And eat lunch, a late lunch, at a local pizzeria and she orders... noodles.

Our hotel guy says -- every Italian child will do the same. Ask for pasta for every meal of every day. 

And then she does what she loves so much -- she plays in the pool, asking me every two minutes to come in and I dont hurry, enjoying the views onto the lake and doing some people watching as well. People hell bent on letting go of that stress, book in hand, sometimes drink in other hand, on a chair, feet in water...

... sometimes whole body in water, books still in hand...

After a while I join her and we throw in a noodle... 

... and we play and swim together and then she asks if we could swim in the lake. This is tricky because the lake gets very deep very quickly. We find the landing and the little ladder that goes down into the perfectly clean and clear water and I see that it is up to my chest, so yes, she could stand on tippy toe right at the lake's edge. But take a step or two away and she would be underwater. 

Still, I want her to feel the lake and so I hover as she climbs down, stands for a minute and then hastily climbs out. Too cold! - she tells me. I breathe a sigh of relief. We return to the pool, swimming and floating with noodles, because though we are not ourselves stressed, the do-not-exert-yourself mentality is very contagious. 

Dinner is on the patio of our hotel. Yes, cooked by the team of Cannavacciuolo. Was the grand chef himself in the kitchen? 

He was.

I did not expect that. He has his flagship Villa Crespi restaurant in town and that's where his rosettes hang, so I imagined he's more there than here, but still, this is his baby as well. 

Snowdrop loves a good steak and that's one way of getting her to order something "grownup" in a good restaurant. She'd been primed and prepped to behave. This one counts. No fussing allowed. You'll be the only child on the patio.

She agrees to dress up (on preapproved clothes - she can be stubborn that way).

(Here: with yo-yo. No, you cannot take a yo-yo to a good restaurant! Really? Really.)

There isn't anything on the menu that would appeal to a kid, but there is, of course a ton that I would love. Still, what to do with the little girl... The meal is really to give her a good experience. I reread the menu. Probably three times. Maybe five.

Ah! There is a beef dish. Her parents have worked with her on that. I point to it with a plea to the kitchen: keep it simple!

The chef takes on the challenge. Let's switch the beef and add French fries. He has kids. he knows. 

She is enthralled. Two steaks on her plate, tender, flavorful. She's full after the first but tells me she cant stop eating it. (The fries are fine, but she concentrates on the beef.)

Done. Down to the last drop. She is giddy, I am happy. We talk about life, love, food, stars in the sky... It is a wonderful night.

(Selfie: she tells me to keep it serious. I try.)

Evening. With beautiful views. 

And a full heart, a full stomach, and a sleepy child.

And so much love...

the arrival

People had such troubles with flights and airports this year! But we are so very lucky. One flight (to Detroit) comes in early. The next (to Paris)? On time. The connection? Straightforward. No lines for passport control, no lines for security check.The arrival (in Milan) -- no problem.

(Landing in Milan is always stunning on a clear day. You start your descent into the Alps...)

We are in Italy, though not really in Milan. From the airport we take a ride over to Pettenasco, a village at the shores of Lake Orta.

(At the foot of these mountains, as seen from the car...)

Let's pause a little on this: why travel great distances to settle in for a whole week on the shores of Lake Orta?

I love Italy's northern lakes: they have a magical combination of shimmering waters, and cascading hills, and distant mountains. The climate tends to be mild. The views -- exhilarating. I've stayed on the shores of the three big ones (Maggiore, Como and Garda), but Lake Orta is new to me. It's smaller, less well known, and yet still very close to Milan, so travel here isn't difficult. This is especially important at times of Covid. 

Fact is, I really wanted Snowdrop to experience that moment of waking up to a mountain view. Who are we kidding -- I wanted to wake up to an Italian mountain view. The one tiny issue I somehow forgot about is the weather -- you cannot be guaranteed a perfect moment in the mountains if you only come for a handful of days. My stays by Lake Garda have had rain. They've had unexpected snows. They had gray skies and drizzle day after day. Why did I not worry about this with a trip to Orta?

You could say that I just don't worry about such things. We'll deal with weather when we get to wherever we are going! (And, judging by the forecast, we will have stuff to deal with here!)

So, here we are in Pettenasco -- not a place you'd exactly think of when planning a distant getaway. But just a few minutes up the road from us is Orta San Giulio, and that place you might well think is worth a special trip.

We'll get to Orta San Giulio tomorrow (the one and only good weather day of the week, according to the weather people). Today, we arrive in our home for these handful of days ("Laqua by the Lake") tired and hungry. But so happy to be here! 

View:

A few words about our small hotel. It's rather new -- it's the simpler place where Antonino Cannavacciuolo cooks (he has a fancy restaurant in Orta San Giulio). Maybe you never heard of him. I never heard of him! But, ask any Italian and they'll nod their head -- he's their TV chef. Every country has one (and some countries have more than one!), no? The person who judges cooking competitions, dishing out praise and criticism without reservation. And well he might. He has earned his rosettes. Written his cookbooks. Prepared countless fabulous dishes.

(I will admit to one other piece of ignorance: when I booked the room here, I had no idea that it came with a kitchen of note. I really booked it for the view and the lake access. Snowdrop is not exactly appreciative of complicated dishes. Sauces, to her, are something she'd rather remove from her plate. We will eat here, at the Bistrot maybe once or twice, but I am sure she will be happier when I take her to the local pizzeria.)

What do we have energy for on this first day here? 

Well, she saw the pool. She was in her swimsuit before I even began unpacking.

And it was a great way for her to let loose after all these hours of travel. The depth was just a touch above her chin which forced her to practice swimming. 

Great strides were made today despite the tiredness...

(an infinity pool suspended over Lake Orta)

In fact, it was hard to get her out of there! But I did. In time for a shower and dinner, at a pizza place picked by our hotel staff -- Vecchio Forno dallo Zio Aldo. A five minute walk up the road.

And as nearly always in Italy, the pizza is great. What can I say -- Italians know how to fire up a pie.

(She sketched a whole book in between the ordering and the eating.)

We walk back to our place by the lake just after sunset. I'll let the lake and the mountains speak for themselves.

With love...

the departure

We are leaving today, my young traveling companion and I. But where to? And for how long??

A week. Away. Far away where the waters sparkle (I hope) and the breezes delight and an echo travels to your door. What, you want more details? Come back tomorrow.

Because this morning -- well, it's still a farmette morning. With the last of my summer chums showing off for me.

And the Bresse girls parading, having won us over with their grace, safe now from the hatchet that was once to be their fate.

And Ed, oh that Ed! So loyally there for our breakfast on the porch! How I love that guy!

I cannot call it a leisurely morning. Things, scattered in piles all over the farmhouse! The little girl's suitcase is half empty, but mine is going to bulge. I need to be prepared! For rains, for sniffles, for one thousand mishaps! 

But finally, I am ready and I drive to the airport and meet my traveling buddy there...

And we are off! To Detroit first. 

(At Detroit's Airport: the tunnel of lights -- a family favorite!)

And two more flights after that. Wish us good winds and good luck!

With so much love...

day before

I'm taking off tomorrow. Just a quick getaway, though I wont really be getting away from my world of beloveds, since Snowdrop will be traveling with me.

This means that today I should focus on getting myself ready, but that's hard to do because the weather is once again stunning. Glorious sunshine, gentle breezes -- that perfect combination that hit us so often this summer. With the exception of this past weekend. Ah well...

I do minimum work in the flower fields.

So small is my lily load that I don't even carry a bucket for the spent flowers. I snip and I toss them somewhere into the bushes. And I admire the last grand ladies that are still popping colors into our gardens.

Ed is blasting out stumps, but I'm in my late August bubble of yard work laziness. It's been a hell of a growing season. I was on top of it through most of the moths, but now it's time to sit back a little. Watch the bees work the lavender, walk through the meadows, enjoy the deliciousness of what's out there. 

(Including the peaches. Ed picks a bowlful for every breakfast. Some are great, some are just okay, all are eaten.)

In the afternoon I hop over to my daughter's house to help Snowdrop pack for her little trip. We're flying and I absolutely insist on nothing beyond what we can carry with us. I've read enough about lost luggage this summer. I want none of that hassle. And here's the beauty of summer travel: after we're done packing her wee carryon is only half full! 

That's cause for celebration! A trip to the farmhouse for some playtime and treats.

And eventually I'm back with Ed and I make a supper, call it a last supper -- a Bittman special of grilled shrimp sprinkled with feta, lemon juice, olive oil and oregano and importantly, because we have so so many of them -- with baby tomatoes. Corn on the side. of course.

Summer foods. Typical farmette foods. Oh, how I love this time of the year!

with love...

Sunday

Visitors from overseas don't get much better than this. Enthusiastic, positive, adventurous, accommodating. Happy. Honestly, looking back on the weekend, I have nothing but warm thoughts throughout. My Polish guests made this into a beautiful set of days.

They're leaving this morning -- onto their more rural set of adventures. (Their first days in the US were spent in cities: first New York, then Chicago. And as architects, I can tell you that they were significantly more impressed with Chicago. At least if you pair up Manhattan and Chicago, there's no question but that on a livability scale, to say nothing of architectural integrity, the Windy City comes out ahead.) And so we have our last meal together. (And here, they sweetly tell me that all their best meals and most definitely the corn that they ate at the farmhouse were best here, in Madison. Yay Madison!)

But first, I clean the farmette flower fields. As usual.

(ahhhh... the last of the lily queens)

(Bold Beatrice... Or, one of the other three Bresse hens. Who can tell...)

It seems fitting to take them all to Sardine for brunch. That Madison restaurant has been our family favorite for years and years and it has so much going for it! The location, in an old brewery building by the lake...

... is lovely. (I asked for a window table and they sweetly obliged.) The food is well thought out, with something for every palate, all fresh and honest. 

As we eat and talk about the future (because in the last minutes of a visit, you always let go of the past and turn toward the future), I think how decisions you make always have unexpected consequences and more often than not, mine have been hugely fortuitous. If I hadn't gambled on that old apartment in Warsaw, I would have never met these people. And here I am now, with friends for life. And with a window toward a new generation of Poles (they are way younger than my other Polish friends). 

(French fry dipped in maple syrup? Mmm, good!)

And so they depart. Only a wicker basket from Poland with a bunch of books for the kids remains.

Happy travels to this wonderful foursome!

And now I turn back to farmette life. 

For a very short while (I'm leaving soon). But definitely for this Sunday: there is a walk with Ed in our local park prairie...

And there is dinner, here, with the young family.

A calm moment before things get hectic again. In a good way. Oh, the beauty of a very full summer!

With love...

Saturday

It could have ben a sunny day -- like those that were generously given to us all summer long. It wasn't that. On the other hand, it could have stormed and rained all day and we would have had a messy time of it, given our mostly outdoor plans. It wasn't that either. So on balance -- I'm so relieved. We mostly won out.

This is the second day of Karolina and Pawel's visit to Madison. (Their two younger ones are here as well.) And honestly, I want to pack in all of Madison's gems into this day, because yesterday was just a small intro and tomorrow they will be leaving. So it's this or rust!

I get up early. Flower fields to clean, chickens to feed, cats to comfort.

Breakfast, by myself. For once I do not want to wake Ed.

And then I am off to meet up with my lovely visitors from Poland. 

If you're a Madisonian, what part of the city would you show off to people who have traveled so far to be here? On a cloudy day with the threat of rain? Where the two adults are architects?

We start off with the farmers market on the Square. But really abbreviated, with a lot of cut throughs, because it's one thing to come up here from Chicago and another to come in from Poland. You want something more than just stalls of food (even though stalls of food say a lot about a community's foibles and predilections). We do touch on one of the stalls that scream Wisconsin at you: Farmer John's, for the cheese curds. Which everyone liked.

And I found it hard to pass on the flowers -- they are so beautiful at the August markets! But, if all goes well, I'm leaving next week and flowers seem like such an extravagance for just three days of table time! 

This is when the threat of rain is the greatest, so we turn toward the Capitol. It's such a beautiful public space. The dome is magnificent, inside and out.

Of course, we walk up to the upper most balcony. Views are to all corners of the world. This one is to the south, where in the distance you can see the rooftop fountain of Wright's Monona Terrace.

And from the Capitol, we walk over to the spot where a very hidden Frank Lloyd Wright house stands (the so called Lamp House). And then still further down, toward Lake Mendota, where we have to share a path with geese and all that they leave behind. So much walking! No one protests. If I may generalize, Poles are terrific walkers

Still, it's time to find something for the youngest member of our group and so she and her dad detour to the Children's Museum while the remaining three of us grab a coffee/tea at Starbucks. And from there -- we all hike over to the terrace on the Monona Terrace.

Inside, there is a motorcycle convention, which makes for a very bizarre juxtaposition of indoor convention space (as planned out by FLWright and then, finished off by the Taliesin architect Puttnam) and shiny monster motorcycles. I should be grateful -- they let us meander around anyway, even though it is their space for the day, but really, the inside of Monona Terrace doesn't thrill me a whole lot in the best of times, so we keep that visit short.

And now it's time for lunch.

We eat at Merchant, which has a special place in my heart, as both daughters had their post-wedding breakfast bash here and it was wonderful. These days, Merchant has spacious outdoor seating, the kind you can only dream about when you're bumping next to your neighbor in, say, Paris. We have a lovely and very leisurely meal.

With the colors of Majorelle right at our table! (Both Karolina and I love that deep blue! We also love our mimosas!)

(The others study their cheeseburgers carefully. Are we all-American or what??)

In talking to them and their kids, I get a sense of how an artistic predisposition develops. Both Karolina nd her husband are obviously artistically inclined. So are the kids, though of course, whether they act on this in any way as they get older remains to be seen. But so often you can see that trail of breadcrumbs that starts with parental talent and leads right to a serious involvement with the arts on the part of the kid. Oh, sure -- there are many artists who were never nurtured with their craft, but many were, and extensively so. In fact, Karolina told me that little Frank (as in Lloyd Wright) had a mother who so believed in his future genius that even in his crib she hung pictures of splendid buildings for him to admire and, in some way soak up into his artistic consciousness.

The market is winding down by now, but we pass by one vendor who has not yet packed up and Karolina and her daughter put together a bouquet for me to take home. 

And I do head home now, so as to give them some space to explore more of FL Wright's houses (scatted throughout Madison) on their own. 

But they come back for dinner at the farmhouse. 

(First, a stop at the picnic table for a fraises de bois hunt...)

Then more porch time. It's not exactly a home made dinner tonight. Instead,  I let them make up their own (takeout) pizzas for a casual pizza supper.

Again we linger. Over chocolate chip cookies and watermelon. And Jeni's Splendid ice cream. The little girl dozes off and still we linger. And it is sweetly nostalgic, because it is our last evening together. I'm sure that our next encounter will be some day, some year, back in Warsaw.

Distance friendships. So tough at times, but so very special when it all comes together and someone makes that effort to travel such a distance to see you.  They made that effort and I love them for it!