Team Rich: Dad and Loni Come to Visit

(Hope you have some time on your hands for this one... loads of pictures ahead!)

On Friday morning we took off for Lake Como with the gang. Ryan was able to get the day off since he worked on one of the Swiss holidays a week before. Perfect timing. The train ride to Como was just over three hours. It's the same route we took to Florence when we first arrived, so we were able to enjoy the scenery of the Swiss Alps again - something I'll never get tired of.

Poor Loni gets bad motion sickness, so Westin was keeping her company and pretending to nap with her.

Upon arrival in Como, we walked to our hotel which was just ten minutes from the train station.

The second W saw this sculpture he ran over and climbed right in.

After checking in to our hotel, we walked down the street to have lunch on the lake.

W and his very own pizza

In Como we stayed at the Barchetta Execelsior Hotel, which was average overall, but scores big points for location. View from our hotel room.

View of our hotel from the lake

Before heading out to the lake, we walked around Como and checked out the Como Duomo (that's a fun one to say)

Como, itself, is not very exciting and doesn't have the same charm and personality as the other towns we went to around the lake.

Always up for some playtime at a park

Before boarding the ferry, we got a recommendation for gelato and grabbed ourselves the first of many.

Como

We had just enough time Friday afternoon to check out one of the towns along Lake Como. We decided to go to Cernobbio, which was close to Como and has a couple popular villas to tour.

The first villa we checked out was Villa Erba. This one may look familiar (particularly from the backyard view) - it was in Ocean's 12.

Taking it all in

After Villa Erba, we walked around the town and then found our way to Villa d'Este

Villa d'Este is one of the most famous villas around Lake Como, but has been turned into a hotel and doesn't really resemble a villa anymore.

The interior and landscaping are gorgeous, nonetheless

This is just the main piazza where the ferry dock is

Saturday morning we hopped back on the ferry and headed to Bellagio and Varenna. On our way to Bellagio, we past this well-known villa... any guesses?

Yup, that's George Clooney's place.

Villa Balbianello - this one was featured in Casino Royale

Enjoying the view from the ferry

The "rapido" ferry got us to Bellagio in forty minutes.

Loved, loved, loved Bellagio. The town is beautiful, peaceful and charming, with orange, yellow and red buildings, narrow cobblestone pathways, flower pots on every window, family-run storefront lined streets and green hills in the background. It would be easy to spend an afternoon here, slowly wondering the streets and peaking into all the different stores and restaurants.

We loved this stairway/pathway and had a little family photo shoot

After walking through the town, we made our way back down to the water to visit the Villa Melzi.

The walk along the lake

Villa Melzi had some beautiful gardens, and is in a picturesque location. Compared to some of the other villas, however, the architecture of this one wasn't as impressive.

This is another home along the lake, near Villa Melzi, that I fell in love with.

After Bellagio, we took the ferry to Varenna, about 15 minutes from Bellagio. We had lunch in the Piazza San Giorgino, right against the mountain.

We then walked to Villa Monestero, which is a popular villa that used to be a monastery.

Again, the gardens and view at this villa were slightly more impressive than the villa itself.

So it provided for yet another good photo shoot backdrop :)

More of the grounds and view

After time on the lake, we went back to Como where we spent some time at a park. Westin was in need of some child-friendly fun, and he found it... with this random pinata.

That night we took the train to Zurich. My dad and Loni were leaving the next day, so we all stayed at a hotel there so we could hang out in the morning before they left. We arrived in Zurich around midnight. Little did we know what we were about to walk in to. I wish I had taken a picture, because words won't fully give you a picture of the madness we were surrounded by. The train station was littered with trash and filled with young adults and teens, many of who were dressed up like it was Halloween. Since we had been to Zurich before, we knew this was not normal. It was like walking into Gotham City. It was so strange. I wasn't even sure we had gotten off at the right station. As we worked our way through the crowds and the smell of smoke and alcohol in the train station, we found ourselves walking into even more of the same atmosphere outside the station. It was chaos and we had no idea what had taken over the city. Let's just say I'm glad Westin was asleep through it all. I'm not sure we could have answered all his questions about what was going on. We later found out that we arrived in Zurich on the night of Switzerland's biggest outdoor party - it included a five hour parade through town, then parties around Zurich with 200 different DJs and musicians.

Since Zurich didn't give off the best first impression, we took my dad and Loni on a walk around the city in the morning after everything had been cleaned up.