X-Mas In Italy & A Lot Of Relaxing

Thursday evening before the X-Mas week saw us on the road down to Italy/Lake Garda. Streets were empty, but we experienced some snow as we drove down the Alps on the other side (south). We just wanted to relax, sleep, eat and do nothing for 5 days. We crashed at around 1 in the morning and slept in late. The next day we went grocery shopping in our favorite grocery store (Migros) and had a blast buying all the fresh produce on long meat and veggie counters. 

On Saturday we went to the "farmers" market and found more things to eat :-)

We even found a stand were they gave away free "vin brulee" - sort of a hot wine punch and cake. Man, you gotta love the Italians. Well, at least we LOVE Italy. 

We spent the afternoon at Decathlon, a french-based sports company. You can find their stores across Europe. They have their own brands and are way cheaper than anything else I found in the market. The best thing at all? The have a brand named Tribord, which is all about sailing and water activities. I bought my heavy weather wets at Decathlon back in 2008 and never ever want to change my gear with one of the more well-known brands. We bought a heavy weather suit for Stefanie, wet suits for diving for both of us and more stuff, like socks, functional layers, softshells and so forth. We were in heaven :-).

Last Sunday we drove to Bergamo, which is a really cool town with a more modern part nestling on the foot of a mountain and an old part of the town on top of the mountain. Both parts are connected with a cog railway. Cost for the roundtrip for both of us? 4 Euros. 

Here is a little more information on Bergamo. If you ever travel through Northern Italy, make sure to visit Bergamo, which is only a stone-throw from Milano and Lake Como. Bergamo also has a little airport, where you can take a low-cost plane to fly throughout Italy and Europe for almost nothing. A great little city and not too touristy. 

Now, this was our extended X-Mas weekend in Italy and even though it looks like we did a lot... we really didn't. Back in Munich now and we are very relaxed. /k.