Switzerland

I'm just back from Italy.

It was a great trip, where I lived out my lifelong dream of eating a gelato the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Oh, and I caught up with my parents : It's all a tapestry. It was a 2-scoop icecream, with chocolate fondant and mango. The size made it so unstable that I had to eat it with my head held over the sink. Life doesn't get any better.

However, as with Belgium, the return to England has been a little deflating in comparison. I'm also on a post-gelato-binge diet, which doesn't help my mood any.

I've got quite a stack of photos. I think I'll space them out a bit, as May is likely to be a quiet month for me.

I met up with my parents in Bergamo, and we toured the lake district (Como, Maggiore) followed by a quick stop in Milan and several days in Rome.

So where does Switzerland come into it? The Italian lake district is right at the top by the Swiss border. We crossed into Switzerland for a few hours and visited a camellia garden. It was an odd climate. It's in the Swiss Alps, not far from snow, but camellias grow well and there are even palm trees in the area. I have the photos from Switzerland organised, so I'm going to start with them, even though they belong chronologically in the middle.

Check out the snowy mountains

Waterfall

Flowers in the garden

I think the town over the lake is Lugarno, but I was driving so I was concentrating on not crashing. Actually, I now realise that I don't remember many of the place names. If you're interested in visiting any of the places you see in the photos, they're somewhere in Italy. Or Switzerland. Definitely, southern Europe somewhere.