Well, my fun visit with Ginny ended this week. I was sad to see her go, but we had an absolute blast here! Ginny has been a friend of mine for about ten years. We are sorority sisters from JMU, and any time we get together we entertain each other by being the funniest, goofiest people in the world (or so we think).
Case in point: we drove to Lake Como and stayed a couple of days in Bellagio. It was completely beautiful, and we enjoyed walking around a couple of the towns (best passarellas ever), shopping,...and taking our senior class pictures. Only Ginny and I would take something as ridiculous as your goofy senior class pictures and imitate them all over Europe. But, we did. And, it was fun. Ginny even took pictures of other people taking the same types of pictures (although, they were all serious about it).
After Como, we followed my GPS on the strangest yet most beautiful drive I have taken up through the mountains to Asiago and Nove. It was truly like driving through a movie scene in some places.
We went to Lake Bled, in Slovenia, and saw all the major sights there. We went on to Rovinj, Croatia on the coast in Istria. I had been there for a couple of hours with my parents on a whirlwind trip through Istria a year or so ago, and I hadn't been too impressed. But, October seemed to be the right time of year. We had gorgeous weather with virtually no other tourists.
The town of Rovinj has been handed back and forth between different empires and countries for so long that the city seemed to escape many of the Communist trappings of other former Yugoslavian nations. One thing that surprised us was at dinner the night we stayed. We found this wonderful little restaurant that served a huge portion of food that neither of us could finish. When the cook came out to clear our places, she was visibly upset that we had not finished our meals. We explained that it was wonderful and that we were just full, but she almost scolded us for wasting food. And, this was in a nice restaurant!
We walked through the city the next morning, hitting all the major sights, tasting Croatian wine, and wandering through a street lined with artists' shops to the top of the hill where the cathedral of St. Euphemia waited. The most adventurous thing we did was climb up to the bell tower on a long series of creaky, thin wooden steps. The view from the top was worth it.
We ended our trip with the requisite visit to Venice, and then I had to say goodbye to Ginny. It was a marvelous week with an old friend!
As usual, my Internet connection is not behaving, and pictures are not uploading. Maybe I can get some on here later.
