I am in someone else’s universe. Orta San Giulio is still the most bellissimo place on Earth. Even 20 years later, I am still in love. Jaramie summed it up when she said, “I feel more beautiful in Italy.”

It is amazing that in two short hours one can travel from the top of the world in the cool crisp Swiss Alp air, down to the warm and breezy sensuous Italian lake village.

Today we’ve spent our time exploring Orta and Isola San Giulio, which used to be a monastery island. We took a quick boat across and explored around the silent and beautiful silenzio passages.





This is a picture of our hotel Leon d’ Oro, which is the same hotel Zac and I stayed in during our honeymoon trip 20 years ago.

Internet connection has not been as prevalent here as it is at home, so we have not had the ability to Blog over the past couple of days. I will fill you in on the details.

Here we all are, ready to leave Boston and begin our European adventure. There is Donna and Ernie in the back, then Jennifer (me), Jesse, Jaramie and Zac, with Maia in front.

We then took off across the Atlantic and I remembered how yucky a 7 hour plane trip can be. But finally, we made it to Zurich, got our cars and were off.

Our first stop was Brunnen, Switzerland. It is a little town on a beautiful Alps lake. Here is a picture from our balcony.

This was a perfect spot for our first night abroad. It was beautiful, it had a fun playground down the street and super comfy beds. We all worked hard to stay awake until it was time for bed at around 8PM. Because we are so far north here, and it is June 30th, it stays light out until about 9:30, but that didn’t stop us. We were beat!