Brescia and a Big Hike
We’ve been pretty busy over the last few weekends trying to get more sightseeing in before our time is up. Two weekends ago we finally made it up north to Brescia where a friend of ours (also from Melbourne) is living. Marco (who we spent New Years with) moved to Brescia about 3 weeks before I came to Italy so it was high time we visited.
Brescia is a gorgeous town, very different to Genova, much more modern (I wanted to say newer, but given the Roman ruins there I can’t). The local council has an excellent reputation there, as being one of the most efficient and organised in the country. It showed! There were bus and taxi lanes on the roads, streets were very clean, and amenities in general looked well looked after. I wondered whether this is because Brescia is on the train line to Venice, so tourists may stop off there on their way to Venice, but was assured by a student of mine that this is not the case. The “Brescians” are just a generally proud people. Unfortunately in Italy many people aren’t too fussed about the state of their towns. Cleanliness and pride extend to the four walls of their house, and outside of this, public areas are considered to be “someone else’s responsibility”.
We had a great lazy lunch with Marco, and a visit to the chocolate fair that was held in the square in front of the Duomo. Afterwards, his housemate and I continued the desperate search for my wedding shoes whilst Marco and Jimbo opted for an afternoon nap. In the evening we went out to one of Marco’s favourite “locale” for an aperitif, and generally for a walk about the town. We were amazed at the amount of money people have in this town! Genova is known for being a wealthy town (first European bank was set up in Genova), but people don’t tend to flaunt their wealth. In Brescia on the other hand (wealthy due to industry), money is seen everywhere! We went to the main square before having drinks only to see lines of cars sporting the most expensive labels: Porsche, Lotus Elise, Porsche, Porsche, customised paint-job Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, BMW, BMW… etc…
After a lovely sleep-in on Sunday, we headed off to Lago di Garda (Lake Garda) for a spot of lunch and a look around. It was quite beautiful there, with a younger vibe than at Como. Another poke of the nose into some shoe shops still left me empty handed in the wedding shoe front. We didn’t get to stay at the lake for very long, as we had to catch the train back to Genova, but we enjoyed the time we had.
Last weekend we stayed in Liguria. On Saturday the shoe hunt continued and we went off to Sestri Levante (a gorgeous town to the east of Genova) and Chiavari. To cut a long story short… still no shoes. We got to Sestri during the lunchtime lull, so we went for a walk along the Baia di Silenzio (bay of silence). There were lots of people taking advantage of the early Spring weather sunbaking on the beach. We basked in the sun for a while too and enjoyed a gelato. Sestri is great as on one side (Baia di Silenzio) you can see the coast towards Cinque Terre, and to the other, you can see Genova.
On Sunday we decided to get active and did a 4.5 hour hike from Camogli to Santa Margherita (via San Fruttuoso and Portofino). We felt a little under prepared compared to the other walkers on the trail. We were in tracksuit pants and runners, whilst others were in hiking boots, completing their outfits with walking poles and backpacks. Well, we may not have looked as professional as the others, but we managed to overtake a huge number of them along the way 
The walk took us up a bunch of steps, steep hills, and not so steep hills, along the coast where on occasion there was a chain attached to the rock face of the hills to aid in getting up or along tricky bits. I was particularly impressed when James recounted a story of our friend Amy doing this same walk in her Birkenstocks!!! It was a great walk, beautiful scenery! You don’t need to be ridiculously fit to do it, but you need to feel energetic on the day, as when you get going, there’s no easy way back.
We had lunch in San Frutuosso, and continued on to Portofino – always following the “two red dot road”. We descended in to Portofino from the Portofino hill, home of the VERY rich. Beautiful countryside covered in olive groves, green hills, flowers and gated off properties. By the time we reached Portofino we’d been walking for about 4 or so hours. Well, given that we were there we thought, why not? And went in to Dolce & Gabanna to look at… you guessed it, wedding shoes 
You can imagine the site of two hikers, a little dirty and a little smelly after a long walk, walking in to a very expensive store, the initially reaction wasn’t too warm. In the end the girls were lovely.
We got home a little exhausted, and had some friends over for a lovely dinner. It was a great weekend!
So with no luck so far on the shoe front I think I will be again torturing James when we go to Florence next weekend (although not too much, museums and David to see!!!).
This weekend, we’re enjoying a more relaxed couple of days at home. Usual wedding preparations are also going ahead. Can’t believe its only about 6 weeks away now!!!!