Story of My Life in Geneva: May 2016

We just returned from a holiday in Stresa, Italy. Stresa is located along Lake Maggiore in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. I visited Stresa about a month ago with my girlfriends and decided it was a place that the whole family may enjoy. Adalyn had another four-day weekend, so we thought this would be the perfect time to explore Stresa as a family.

**One interesting side-note, Adalyn has had two public holidays the month of May, Ascension Day and Whit Monday, both are religious holidays. The whole country shuts down for public holidays. Chris tried to mow the lawn on Whit Monday, and our neighbor came over and said it was a "quiet day" and he was not allowed to mow the lawn! **

Back to Stresa...
We left on Saturday morning and arrived at noon just in time for a picnic along the lake. The weather was perfect and the kids were so excited to play on the beach, even though it was a a bit rocky! In the afternoon, we visited Parco Della Villa Pallavicino. Upon entering the park, we were amazed by the beauty within. You are transformed into a forest environment with botanical gardens and a wide variety of animals to visit. The girls were super excited to see the zebras and kangaroos. We spent a couple hours walking around the parc seeing the different animals, birds, and playing at the playground.

Reunited with their favorite place...the beach!

Beautiful botanic garden.

On Sunday, the weather was beautiful. When I visited with my friends, we never saw the sun, so it was definitely a highlight seeing the sun! Lake Maggiore is known for the Borromean Islands, a group of three small islands, Madre, Pescatori, and Bella. We took a boat and visited the three islands and enjoyed seeing their unique charm.

Love Palm trees!!!

Boat ride-

Isola Bella

Once back in Stresa, the weather was heating up, so we headed to a beach a local had told us about to find sand for the girls to make sand castles. After walking through the town looking a bit odd, girls in their flip flops and swimsuit cover ups, while the locals walked around in parkas, we finally found the beach! The girls loved being lake side, but were diappointed that the water was very cold and they could not swim.

Relaxin'

Spaghetti every meal, every day!

Her happy place!

For dinner, we were told of a restaurant up in the mountains with an amazing view, so we knew we wanted to check it out. We were able to eat authentic Italian food while overlooking Lake Maggiore from above, it was a perfect ending to our trip.

Amazing view-

Best dinner date-

Eliza bought this souvenir camera. It doesn't take real pictures, but she sure thinks it does!!

She was busy taking pictures of everything on the trip.

On our way back, we took a different route, The Simplon Pass. This route links Switzerland and Italy, used as early as the Stone Age. You basically go up the mountain to an altitude of 2,000 meters, and back down the mountain. The views were breathtaking.

Starting the ascent-

At the top, amazing to see the difference!

We are now looking forward to Chris' aunt and cousin who arrive next week for a visit!

Highlights from the last month...

We took a day trip to Bern, Switzerland, the capital.