Today we traveled from the Cinque Terre area, down through Genova to Como. This is the summer home of George Clooney, so we have been on the hunt for him! We arrived here about 2.00pm and booked into the Hotel Marco, run by a Turkish family. Como is kind of similar to Queenstown, only 2000 years older and steeped in history and age. There is a monorail that goes up the mountain (980ft) so we caught this up and up and up, rather steeply actually. At one point on the skinny ascent, we passed within inches of a workman cutting out some blackberry and then, no doubt OSH approved, he hopped on the front bumper of the monorail car and hitched a ride to the top!! I kid you not!???!!! The ascent would have been about 70 degrees, but no worries...!!!???
Once at the top, we found a whole other village set up with shops and church etc. so we wandered around, once again amazed at the ability of these people to form purchase from the side of a mountain, with the incline unimaginable. Our own Wellington is a junior laugh in comparison. I don't even want to consider how they got groceries, food and essentials, let alone building materials up that mountain!!
As we made our way back to the monorail, we passed a man selling wine from a stall. He was offering free samples so once again, Jan lead the charge and we sampled wine. As the conversation went on- and wine was purchased, I asked him how old the area was (....my personal fascination...) he said Como was about 2000 years old and then offered that we should check out the church. As the others moved off I asked "how old is the church?" to which he replied he did not know. I remarked that he should just say anything and we would not know, to which he laughed saying "invent for pleasure" (chuckle, chuckle......)
BRILLIANT!!! 'Invent for pleasure' is my new catch cry!! If you can get a laugh out of most things, surely you can also invent for pleasure???
BUT, incidentially we have found out later that the wine was really AWFUL and probably off because it did not taste like the wine from his taster! We poured it down the sink and actually probably did Lucerne a favour by acid cleaning out their drain pipes. -CK!
Once at the top, we found a whole other village set up with shops and church etc. so we wandered around, once again amazed at the ability of these people to form purchase from the side of a mountain, with the incline unimaginable. Our own Wellington is a junior laugh in comparison. I don't even want to consider how they got groceries, food and essentials, let alone building materials up that mountain!!
As we made our way back to the monorail, we passed a man selling wine from a stall. He was offering free samples so once again, Jan lead the charge and we sampled wine. As the conversation went on- and wine was purchased, I asked him how old the area was (....my personal fascination...) he said Como was about 2000 years old and then offered that we should check out the church. As the others moved off I asked "how old is the church?" to which he replied he did not know. I remarked that he should just say anything and we would not know, to which he laughed saying "invent for pleasure" (chuckle, chuckle......)
BRILLIANT!!! 'Invent for pleasure' is my new catch cry!! If you can get a laugh out of most things, surely you can also invent for pleasure???
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