European Adventure

Christopher and I (Julie) traveled to Italy in October to visit Angelica and her Italian relatives. As it turned out Jess, Marco and Alex’s trip there overlapped for a few days, it was so good to see them too. Angelica lives in Sconzo, a village on the edge of Bergamo. We enjoyed walking around the village in the beautiful fall weather. One day we all went to Citta Alta, the ancient part of Bergamo for lunch and a walk around the old city.

Jessica, Angelica, Christopher and I took the train to Turin for and overnight trip to explore a city none of us had been to before. Jess wanted to see the old Fiat factory there and we all got a kick out of the building. It has been converted into a mall including a hotel where we spent the night.

When it was a factory after each car was finished it was tested on the rooftop test track which is still there. We had a great time on the roof walking the track and enjoying the views. Turin also has a car museum that we walked to, there were some great old cars there.

Angelica and I took Christopher on a daytrip to Leolandia near Bergamo that has a model of Italy dotted with miniatures of famous spots in the country. Like a concrete Lego land and Christopher loved it. We had visited Leolandia back in 2013 and Christopher really wanted to visit it again.

One day Christopher and I joined Angelica in Lovere where she teaches English to local teenagers at a school. While she worked, we explored the mountain village on Lake Iseo and we had a great morning.

After a week in northern Italy, Christopher and I flew to Paris for our second part of our trip. My niece Suzanne met us there for our 4 night stay.  Angelica took a bus from Milan to Paris to spend 3 nights with us. Our first two nights were at a hotel near Paris Disney where we spent two days at the parks to complete Christopher’s dream of visiting every Disney Park around the world. He was so excited.

 Disney was all decorated for Halloween, we especially enjoyed the Coco decorations in Frontierland. Our favorite ride was the Ratatouille ride, it was a cool trackless ride that gave you the feeling that you were in the kitchen from the movie. At the end of the ride we could see into the Ratatouille restaurant that looked like fun. Christopher says Epcot in Orlando will have this ride later this year, we are excited to do the ride there the next time we are at Epcot.

The castle has real stained glass windows made by a man who helped to restore the stained glass in Norte Dame in Paris years ago. From a balcony in the castle we could see Maleficent and her menacing tree. Below the castle lives a dragon in his grotto that was very cool to see.

We laughed when we saw the Toon Town, it was barely an alley, which was fine with us because we’re not big fans of the one at Disneyland.

Our last two nights of the trip was in Paris, which was what I was really looking forward to. Last time I was in Paris was 2008 and for Christopher it was 2005 and we had a great time. After checking in to our hotel we wandered around and ended having dinner at a Creperie that we first visited in 2000 and was still delicious. We ended our evening on a Seine river cruise to see Paris at night and it was lovely as always. All the sights were lit except Norte Dame, it was dark because of the fire earlier this year.

The next morning it was cold and raining so Angelica guided us to the Galeries Lafayette where we saw the beautifully restored dome and Christopher loved a new view of Paris for us. We then walked a series of 18th century covered shopping arcades that were so pretty. The rain ended and we were able to tour Sainte Chappelle which has the best stained glass in Paris and then we walked by Notre Dame during the day.

The next morning Suzanne and Angelica left so I asked Christopher what he would like to do and he chose going to the top of Montparnasse, the only skyscraper in Paris. It was a first for him and I hadn’t been to the top in a while and we enjoyed ourselves. We walked through the Luxembourg Gardens to get there and we happened upon one of the three Statues of Liberty that exists. After that we took the metro across the river for a nice view of the Eiffel Tower and I was happy to ride one of the old train cars.

That afternoon we took an Uber to CDG airport for our red eye flight back to Singapore and Christopher got to experience the old terminal that I flew into back in 1980 on my first visit to Paris.