My first-ever trip to Italy!!!

There are so friggin' many amazing things to see in Italy -- I imagine not too many foreign tourists select a week on Lago Maggiore as their first choice. But, of course, I didn't choose this trip, It chose me.

By that, I mean that my husband was invited to a conference that happened to coincide with a school vacation for the kids. So I didn't have much choice but to take a week off and take care of the kids. Yet if I'd had a choice, I don't think I could have chosen better -- it was really perfect!


See if you can find Nico in this picture!

Riding around on the public boats all over the lake was just about the right level of adventure for a five-year-old and a seven-year-old. We could ride the boat until we felt like getting off, and wherever we got off we'd see something interesting!


Find Nico at Santa Caterina del Sasso!




My little boys learned to take photos like the tourist pros!

Of course, they preferred to just find a playground whenever possible.


Nico and Léo hopping on the scenic trampoline of Locarno.

That worked well since most of the town waterfronts seemed to have a playground. So we'd get off the boat, go to the playground so they could run and jump around for a while, and then when they were tired, we'd hop on the next boat and rest as the beautiful scenery floated by. (The kids also liked to watch the boatmen lassoing the dock to tie the boat on each time we came to a port.)



I loved the boating too, and not just for all of the obvious reasons.

You know how some people can read a page of baseball statistics, and normal people wonder how it could possibly be interesting to read all of those lists of names and numbers? Well, I'm kind of like that, only with the train schedule. (Hey, I just like to know where you can go! And when!) And the Lago Maggiore boat schedule was even better!!! It's just a little more complex than the Zürich commuter train schedule (since it doesn't repeat every hour), so it was kind of a fun challenge to figure out possible itineraries.

One person I met at the conference was actually fooled into thinking that I'm highly organized and efficient! LOL, just because I always knew when to catch the next boat! But it has nothing to do with organization, just a strange fondness for public transportation. ;^)