Yverdon

After a busy week at work, we decided that Saturday needed to be a day of relaxation. So we hopped in the car and began driving into the countryside. 

We've been having days on end of rain so it was nice to see everything beginning to bloom. And mountains. Mountains have nothing to do with the rain, but there they were as far as the eye could see in either direction. I did my duty and took some panoramic shots that will join all my other well-intentioned panoramic shots in a folder on my desktop that is definitely NOT called 'unprocessed crap'. Because I am a professional and never use rude words to identify desktop folders that I am too lazy to sort through.

Cool cuckoo-type church steeple.

I want a donkey. Badly. LOOK AT THAT FACE. And the ears.....

And they come in Fun Size!

Someone can't keep his hoofs to himself and was taking a time-out in the far corner of the field. When my back was turned he trotted back to the momma donkey and started rehearsing for xXxrealdonkeysgonewildcollegepartypaloozaxXx.com. That girl donkey though, was so not into it and gave him a swift kick in the-

oh, right, my grandparents read this. Back to lovely old buildings!

This was in the center square of Yverdon, a cute little town in the middle of the farmland. We had a bit of lunch and walked around until we (I) began to get cold (about 5 minutes).

Terra-cotta has got to be the best roof material ever. And I am absolutely saying that because it makes my pictures look better. 

Guard cow. Came over to see what was up.

I want pet cows. I will name them Burger, T-Bone, Kobe, Fillet and Sparkle.

Rolling hill porn.

And we'll end this brief tour of the Swiss countryside with a castle. We wanted to go inside, but it was all like "I'm closed to the public" so we were all like "BYE." And then went home and ate pizza and watched The Last Waltz and marveled yet again at Van Morrison's bedazzled track suit. Here's hoping that your weekend was equally relaxing!

Facts of Life

Friends of The Internet. Please take a moment to consider the following urgent question:

Will smuggling one of these adorable creatures into my home cause me to lose my security deposit?

P.S. Currently only acknowledging answers that rhyme with 'snow' and are followed by the phrase 'do it! name it Fred!' or variations thereof.

P.P.S. Moments after this photo was taken, I became witness to some donkey on donkey shenanigans initiated by that grinning fool in the upper left. Hilariously bothersome.

On the way home: Palleroso

On our last morning, the sun made it's first real appearance of the trip (of course) so we decided to stop at the little hilltop town of Palleroso on our way out of the area.

We had taken the drive up the day before, but the heavy rain made it impossible (and zero fun) to walk around.

The astonishing thing about Palleroso was how new it looked (well, new in the context of something that is clearly very old). It seems that Tuscany is heavy with these little towns only most are in various states of melancholy, quietly waiting for their glory days to return. Memories linger. I think it filled both of us with a little happiness that someone is clearly tending to Palleroso and looking ahead.

We waved at another charmingly small little hill town from atop our charmingly small hill town.

Views from Palleroso

The church in the small center "square." 

And then we headed homeward. Something I learned about Italian rest stops, the bigger ones have great food! The above feast is our lunch, purchased from a chain called Autogrill. Granted, our rest stop meal on the way to Barga was much...humbler, but still, a small nugget of info worth filing away.

Thanks for re-living our trip with me. I hope your Friday lets you off easy into the weekend.

An Easter walk in Lucca

Easter Sunday we drove from Barga to the coastal town of Cecina to have lunch with another of Anthony's relatives. It was a spectacular meal and we tried our best to do it justice. 

When we left later in the evening, buttons and zippers working rather hard, we wondered if the feeling of hunger would ever return. We decided to stop in the old (and by "old" I really mean "founded by  Etruscans in B.C. times") city of Lucca on the way back to Barga and take a stroll around. Having gotten rather acclimated to the desolation of Swiss towns on weekends and holidays, I expected the place to be deserted.

WRONG. There were people everywhere. It was great. Shops were open, families milling about. Very festive. We waddled through the streets taking everything in, musing at the restaurants setting up for dinner. Because...how could anyone in the Euro-verse still be hungry?

Lucca is known for many things: intact Renaissance-era walls surrounding the city, a circular piazza and this, the Torre Guinigi which has oak trees growing on the roof. Unfortunately it wasn't open, but we spent a completely acceptable amount of time staring in wonder at the trees suspended far above our heads.

Did I mention we were stuffed from lunch?

Oh, I did?

Well, really, I mean...we just had lunch you see. Not dinner. No one wants to wake up in the middle of the night going "oh man, if only I had some of that delicious Lucca ice cream." So this was really an insurance policy more than anything else.

Inside the piazza. An number of the buildings have curved outer walls.

The city walls are now used as a promenade with a different type of tree planted along each of the four sides. We were pretty bushed by this point, so we did not walk them, but the phrase "next time" was used with some frequency on the drive back to Barga. There will be a next time.

I'm already waiting for  it.

To top off the day, we were treated to a magnificent sunset. As it had rained pretty steadily since we arrived in Italy, the sight of blue sky was most welcome.