Lombardy…more like LomPARTY

Alyssa passed all of her classes!!!!!! The whole reason we got to come here was because Alyssa is doing the study abroad thing and of course she aced her classes (DUH). So it was time to celebrate!

We spent a few days in the Lombardy region to see Milan which is Italy’s capital but mainly to stay at an Airbnb that Alyssa has been wanting to go to for years.

Milan is an interesting city – very different feel from the medieval cities we’re used to. From the little we were able to explore, it seemed much more modern in terms of architecture and layout. And the fact that it’s the fashion city of the world was very evident. In a way that we tried not to be embarrassed about (it didn’t seem like budget traveling was particularly common in this city as we definitely stuck out with our Old Navy and Target outfits 😆).

The food was amazing though and getting to walk along the top of the Cathedral was really great.

We also got to see Da Vinci’s L’Ultima Cena (The Last Supper) which was beautiful. We tried to book tickets way in advance but even a month wasn’t far enough. So the only option available was to do a tour with an “activity” involved at the end. It didn’t tell us that the activity would be sitting with the tour group for an additional hour diving into the details of different aspects of the painting (very cool!) and then dressing up as someone from the painting and having your picture taken (not as cool).

It ended up being really informative and also really embarrassing because we were the only English speaking people in the group but the group and the guide were all very friendly.

As I mentioned, the real highlight and purpose of the trip was to go to Lake Como (about an hour and a half train ride further north) to visit an amazing Airbnb that Alyssa has been eyeing way before we even knew we were coming to Italy.

It’s a room that’s located inside the owners house so you share a kitchen and living room but we had our own bedroom and bathroom. One of the major appeals when reading the Airbnb listing was getting to spend time with the owner, though. Silvi is the most classic nonna you can imagine and she didn’t speak any English at all but we were able to stumble through all our conversations with Google translate and the bit of Italian we’ve learned along the way.

Silvi was incredibly friendly and cooked us dinner two out of the three nights and made a HUGE breakfast spread for us every morning. She continued to call herself our nonna and really made us feel comfortable being there and making the space feel like “ours”.

Also, her son who lives nearby offered to pick us up and drop us off whenever we wanted since we didn’t have a car so we got to explore a few of the little towns around Lake Como and take the ferry around a bit.

The property has an inifinity pool (which was way too cold to swim in although Alyssa did a plunge one day 🥶), a hot tub (where we spent every night watching the sun set), and a sauna (the hottest sauna I’ve ever been in, it melted my body).

It was a magical experience made even better by getting to spend time with Liebe, Silvi’s 4 year old Bernese Mountain Dog. She was the most perfect creature ever (Louis, if you’re reading this, know that I still love you and miss you and can’t wait to see you again! You too Polly!).

This was our last trip in Italy and it was amazing!! We spent the last few days when we got back packing up and will be heading to Austria for Christmas and Switzerland for New Years and then back to the Burgh. Can’t believe our time in Italy is over – it will take years to process the ways that this experience has changed us and we’re so grateful and joyful that we’ve had the ability to see so much of this beautiful country!