blog

Cipolla ed Aglio

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:24:26 +0100

Brunella and Doriano live at #25 and look after the house. Brunella cleans and Doriano did the remodeling of the house. We are very pleased Brunella surprised us with one of her beautiful water colors. Brunella has been painting for a number of years now and has that rare gift to create perfect water colors with great eye for detail.

You'll find "Cipolla ed Aglio" in the casa3dici kitchen.

Train to Milano - Don't forget to validate

Tue, 17 May 2011 19:31:13 +0100

Why not visit Milano when you're in the neigborhood? You could buy the same flashy green trousers I bought there!
If you go, we recommend driving to Como (San Giovanni station) and taking the train from there to Milano (Porta Garibaldi)
It is cheap to park your car for the day at the station. The trains in Italy are also remarkably cheap. However, there is an expensive catch: After you buy the ticket(s) you should make sure to VALIDATE them by getting them stamped in one of the hidden, unobtrusive yellow stamping machines on the platform. We have heard twice now from friends staying in our house that they proudly presented the tickets they had managed to buy (in their best Italian) and had to pay €50 fine (per ticket!) for the crime of not validating. They tried ignorance, played tourist, used all the Italian swear words they knew, but finally had to give in and pay up. It's so easy to break Italian law if your name is not Berlusconi.

Now a major movie: Agriturismo La Morena

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 19:30:51 +0100

Just saw a video on Youtube by Dave Renkema featuring Elvira (his wife), Morena (Clay's daughter), Vera (Doriano's daughter) and Clay, the chef himself. See it here then go visit yourself when you're in Lezzeno. Great views, great food, great people. If you see Doriano (lives at number 25) he will suggest you go there anyway.

Vacation time...

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:07:05 +0100

In July we spent 2 wonderful weeks in casa3dici. We happened to have great weather. Not all of us have been that fortunate, but there is nothing we can do about that. Garden and house are finished. We installed a new oven, cemented the barbecue and painted the gate to the garden which now clearly marks the casa3dici property. Apart from that we just relaxed and had fun. We bought 2 mountain bikes and lost a lot of breath cycling along the lake.
We also went on a great hike with the Zwaan family: took the boat from Bellagio to Menaggio, the bus to Breglia and hiked up the mountain to Rifugio Menaggio (1400 meters). The 9 of us were the only guests, had a great meal with lots of pasta and polenta, slept in the bunk beds and woke up at 4:30 to see the sun rise. Magnificent views of both Lake Como as well as Lake Lugano. Well worth a trip. Make sure you make a reservation in advance!

Had some great evenings with our Italian neighbors which also was very useful to catch up on the language and broaden our Italian vocabulary. A few more hints and tips for you to investigate:

Climb the mountain using the path which starts just above the garden. Make sure you are well prepared and wear the right shoes: it is extremely steep but leads straight up to Monte Colmenacco at 1280 meters. Again, the views are stunning. Count on a 6 hour hike altogether. From Colmenacco it is another 1,5 hours to San Primo.

Great little enoteca in Bellagio: Cavaturacciolo. This is your chance to try some of the greatest Italian wines (Barolo, Amarone, Sfurzat) by the glass. Great "snacks" to accompany the wine and excellent advice on the wines. . http://www.cavaturacciolo.it/home.jsp

Take the kayaks early in the morning to paddle along the shore and get ashore on the small beach just before Helvetia. Then walk over to the little supermarket and get your fresh panini. Buy some extra because you'll have worked up a huge appetite once you are back (and have walked up the stairs again) .

Special Guest Blog by Captain Jacob

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:50:34 +0100

Jaap's adventures on Lake Como:

Now that we finally finished the restauration of Casa3dici, we can start using it in the way it was ment to be: as a shelter (the spanish call this Parador and created a chain of lovely hotels in the most beautifull places all around Spain) to be used when escaping from work and other less thrilling business in and around the place we live.

To enlargen our possibilities to "live" the lake we thought it a good idea to get ourselves a little boat, a RIO 500 40HP outboard, which can carry easily 5 persons. We are probably the only Dutch that have no boating experience at all, so it was also some kind of adventure. The boat is harboured at Mostes boating, just right down below Sormazzana, so one can get there in 5 minutes by foot.

Mostes is a company that builds luxury yaughts and....offshore racing monsters. We are speaking about 1000HP Lamborghini engines that generate speeds around 200km/h on the water. The Lake Region gives of permits for just 4 hours a year because of the tremendous noise produced. One mile up north is the Molinari dock: same stile but exclusively using Ferrari engines. Lovely tales about professional hatred, similar to the old stories about Ferrari and Lamborghini ( who were originally tractor builders, making racing vehicles for fun, did you know that?) circle in the air.

Our first trip with the RIO (no water licence needed) was lovely: since Stefano told me in winter it had a 70 ltr fuel tank that guarantees more than one day of autonomy we confidently took off.

We navigated up to Bellagio, which is spectaculour seen from the water, and then bended down in the direction of Lecco. Lunch on the boat in a quiet place (just let it flow!) and off to Bellano. In hte meantime the boys had taken over the ship. Officially you have to be sixteen years old but our son of ten can handle it without problems. Crossing the lake back to Bellagio we started hear strange sounds, but holding back just a bit the speed everything continued to go smooth. Just to be sure I asked Vincent to check the level of the fuel: "no problem, I still see liquid floating in the tank". Just when I started saying to the rest of the crew that I didn't hope to fall still the engine stopped. A quick look around showed us that we chose the worst place to drift helplessly around: just in the middle of the in- and outgoing route of the ferries, 100 m out of the coast. We didn't make friends among the professional captains for sure! You know the chamber orchestra only for horns by captain Hook? It must sound more or less like what we heard.

A friendly co-boater teared us off to quieter waters and so safed us from being abissed by those pirats. Phone call to Mostes: laughing orchestra! He kindly brought us a jerrycan with fuel, that after dearing acrobacy by Vincent, jumping from our little to his very much higher boat, jiggling on the waves, was poured in the tank. "Have a nice day, bye ,bye". We just crossed the lake again when the phone went: Stefano: "no matter where you are, PUT OFF the engine NOW. I gave you the wrong type of fuel." Shouting orchestra! His dad came over with a very speedy speedboat to bring the oil to mix with the gasoline. After this very hot, panoramic and musically inspired tour we turned back to harbour, where we immediately made us explain where to refurnish fuel next time we go out.

If someone reading this gets inspiration to go for a boat trip: it is for hire, just let us know. I will inform Mostes you are coming and let him check if there is sufficient fuel in the tank. Posted by Jakob

Pittoresco Lezzeno

Tue, 18 May 2010 20:26:12 +0100

We just spent a long weekend painting in Lezzeno with 12 friends from Holland. This time we did not paint the walls. This was ART weekend. We used casa3dici and my sister's house Fitzcarraldo just around the corner. Weather was much better than predicted. One of the friends is an art teacher and did a wonderful job providing useful feedback. First day we painted in the frazione itself. Next day in Villa Melzi (way too many flowers and leaves....). Day 3 we painted in San Giovanni. Here is my 'artist impression of the church. Not entirely architecturally correct as you can see. In the evening we went to Agriturismo La Morena, painted some more scenery and livestock ("puppi" the pig), had a fantastic meal, lots of wine, limoncello, stumbled down the mountain and had more limoncello at home. Not a bad weekend at all..

TomTom Italian

Sun, 02 May 2010 12:16:26 +0100

If you have a navigator in the car, here's another easy way to learn some directional Italian. Switch language and ... "andiamo".
Destra, sinistra, lascire autostrada tra otto chilometri, entri in la rotonda ed prendi la terza uscita, arrivato a destinazione. If you get lost, don't worry, Francesca (my patient navigator) will do a recalculo percorso. Unfortunately, you don't learn to spell it right.....

Once for Jaap, twice for Cees

Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:28:45 +0100

During your stay in casa3dici you may notice this small sign in the kitchen. Way back in the 80ies, Jaap and I studied in Utrecht and shared a house. I think this sign was Jaap's very first "dentist drilling" assignment. We had the sign on the door (Ring once for Jaap, twice for Cees). I can assure you Jaap has continued to practice his drilling skills after the door sign and his patients are in very safe hands.....

A weekend in Lezzeno

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:25:54 +0100

Last week my wife and I spent a long weekend in Lezzeno to do some work on the house and garden. Jaap came along for 3 days. Apparently the week before there was still snow, but during our stay the weather was fantastic. We had lunch in the garden everyday.
We sawed the remaining wood in the garden and now have enough wood to burn the barbie for the next years. Barbecue to come soon after the gardiniere will have leveled the garden and put grass on which will happen in the coming weeks. With the terrace and gazeebo it will be the place to be in Lezzeno in summer!

Jaap also constructed a beautiful cast-iron fencing around the stairwell preventing kids from falling down. We painted the roof terrace walls a warm terra-cotta/salmon color. Roof terrace will be another place to spend a great time and sip a white wine at sunset.
We had dinner one night at Trattoria La Busciona near Bellagio. Well worth a visit.

A morbid bite

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:01:26 +0100

Some time ago, when staying in Casa3dici the shops were closed so we did not manage to get panini. However, we still had some pre-packaged sweet dough-ie things. The wrapper shouted these were Più Morbido!

Just to make sure, we checked the dictionary to find this did not mean More Deadly but merely that they were now Even Softer. Oh, well, better safe than sorry; we learn every day.