Novara 2014

So we arrived in Novara five days ago and they have just sped by. It was all I remembered for the summertime - hot and humid - but it was so nice seeing all the familiar places. We had a small hiccup with the flight out of Istanbul so we arrived in Novara later than originally planned. It seems that this area of Italy is making some major infrastructure improvements. It may be for Expo 2015 but in any case they were well needed. The different train systems appear to have merged and are offering better schedules. Of course at a slightly higher cost but it has also been four and a half years since we lived here. Novara is also making a lot of renovations to many of the buildings here. The old gelato shop where I used to take Gracie after an afternoon in the park has closed down. All our favorite restaurants are still open and still good.

We went to ET for pizza on our first night and were hoping to see Gaitano, our Italian/Germanftiend who works there. When we arrived we didn't see him and thought he might be working somewhere else. In a moment, he came from around the pizza oven. At first he wasn't certain who we were but we could see the look of recognition hit his face. He was so happy and proud that we made a point of coming to see him. He told his co-workers that we were his friends from Texas. Of course, the pizza diavola was just as good as we remembered.

The next day we went to the mercado looking for my friend Vittorio who owns (along with his brother Marco) a cheese shop in the mercado. We turned to corner and saw Vittorio waiting on a customer. He looked up and immediately recognized me. He said he was just thinking about us last week and so he wasn't at all surprised to see us standing there. Life has been very good for him over the few years. He has written a book and is very busy promoting it along with running the shop. We are now the proud owners of a signed copy! He looks great and it was super to see him and talk to Marco. Definitely not enough time.

 

That night we joined Antonella, Cosimo, Cetti and Giovanni for dinner at Quarta Carbonia, another favorite restaurant in Milan. Our favorite waiter, Daniela, insisted on serving our table. This place is amazing! Basically, we let Daniela choose the wine, antipasti and main course for all of us. This was followed with saying of several different types of Amaro (herbal digestive liqueurs). Another fantastic evening! We were able to catch the second to the last train to Novara and got back to the B&B around 1 a.m.

Friday was an easy day just wandering around Novara and having lunch at another favorite place, Glichini. Gerardo was going to pick us up that evening on his way from the airport do we planned on watching Italy play Costa Rica at six that evening at a nearby cafe. Unfortunately they tied so they get to play on Tuesday for another chance to make it past the first round.

We spent the weekend with Gerardo and Cinzia and it was so good to be back with them again - back with family! On Saturday we took a drive to Orta San Giulio which is a beautiful little town on Lago d'Orta, another favorite place for us. Great weather, good friends, good food and wine - life doesn't get much better!

 

 

 

Ernie and Cinzia

Great photo of Gerardo and Cinzia

 

This is a photo of the inside of a tiny little church that was founded in 1641!

Back to house to sit around and reminisce a out all the weekend trip we've taken with them since Ernie started working in Italy. We managed to get Cinzia to agree to make lasagna for Sunday. She is definitely the lasagna queen! It was so good! The best part was that Sunday was her birthday and we were there to help celebrate her day.

Back to Novara that night and we are now packed and waiting for the cab to take us yo the bus that will take us to the plane that will take us to Reykavik - and temperatures in the 50s during the day! Come on cooker weather!

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