Month: May 2016

London 2016

Back from a weekend trip to London! Måns was attending a branding awards show for work but we stayed an extra day to celebrate his birthday!  We went to see “Book of Mormon” at the Prince of Wales theater to celebrate. It was hilarious!

We also visited a few places nearby the hotel, like Harrod’s Department store (I could only afford tea) and the Victoria & Albert museum, the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. We spent over an hour inside and didn’t even get to see half of it.

Italy 2016

This time, we went to the northeast of Italy, in the Veneto Region, Treviso Province.

We flew into Venice and spent the day there walking around the giant mouse maze that is the city and eating lunch. Then we drove about 45 minutes north to the farmhouse we rented.

The farmhouse was out in the country between two medium-sized towns. The kids had their own clubhouse, plus there were goats and chickens. We ate half of our meals outside.

So now for the odd parts of the trip…

  1. Hausbrandt. Måns loves the logo of Hausbrandt coffee, so when I saw that we were staying close to their headquarters, I wrote to ask if we could visit and perhaps purchase some cups with the logo. Apparently, they don’t give tours, but decided to give one to us – it was really interesting! When we got there, we were informed that the owner of Hausbrandt – Martino Zanetti – wanted us to join him at his house in the hills and treat us to lunch. This was in addition to gifts of coffee, the cups Måns wanted, beer and many prints of Mr. Zanetti’s artwork.So we unexpectedly found ourselves at a beautiful villa in the hills for the afternoon. Mr. Zanetti showed us around and really wanted us to come stay with him, but we politely declined. Then he took us to a beautiful restaurant overlooking the hills and treated us to lunch with some other business clients.
  2. Ai Pioppi.  Ai Pioppi is an amusement park built in the woods by a man who runs an outdoor restaurant. Nothing is electric – it’s all run by kinetic energy. There are rollercoasters and slides that go above the trees! It’s kind of scary but exciting. Don’t worry – all rides meet “Italian Safety Standards”! Which means we made it out with Leo covered in bruises, but otherwise it was great! Check out more pictures of the place here- http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/10/ai-pioppi-kinetic-carnival/
  3. Santa Augusta restaurant. I chose it because it had good reviews on TripAdvisor. However, I don’t recall seeing the words “40 minute uphill pilgrimage” in the description. We started up the stairs and then began climbing the trail up the mountain into the forest. We met people who said, “Oh yeah, it’s just up there,” along the way. 40 minutes later, starving and thirsty, we made it to the top. The food was good, but as Leo says, “Not good enough for that climb.”