Just back from a 1 week vacation at Lago Maggiore, Italy with my wife.

We stayed in a holiday house in Traffiume, a tiny and lovely village close to Cannobio. We realized after some sight seeing around the lake, that Cannobio was actually the nicest place at Lago Maggiore. It has a rather large historic center, a beautiful promenade at the lake, great restaurants, fantastic ice cream – well, simply, everything you expect from a gorgeous and relaxed Italian town.


Of course, we did visit the Borromean Islands, but only Isola Bella and Isola dei Pescatori. Though there were tons of tourists on Isola Bella, we could still enjoy the fantastic scenery – this island is a must-see! Make sure you visit the palazzo, it’s worth the high entry fee.

We also made a trip to a little medieval village up in the mountains, called Gurro. Driving the curly and steep road was itself an interesting experience.

On our way back home, we stopped by at Locarno and enjoyed a few ruminant moments in the backyard of the citadella.

See all pictures from our trip to Lago Maggiore in my Flickr photo set.

In August 2006, I spent a few days in Sweden together with my wife during vacation. The most beautiful place we found was Stenshuvud National Park with a wonderful long long long sandy beach. There were only a few tourists, lots of nature, no buildings, hundreds of ladybirds. Sounds romantic and you bet it was a great place to celebrate our first year of marriage.

We stayed at a B&B close to the park called Ekenäs Gård with nice rooms and fantastic breakfast. A really lovely place. Make sure you get the big room with the balcony should you intend to go there.

Yep, me and my wife were travelling 3 weeks in Mexico, from August 17th to September 7th.

Mexico City

We flew into Mexico City and stayed there for a bunch of days. This megacity is of course a must-see! What I remember most is the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, where you have the astonishing view below. Also unforgettable was a Sunday we spent with a friendly Mexican family who served us blue Tortillas (yes, there is blue corn in this world!).

Guanajuato

Next, we travelled by bus to Guanajuato, which is a huge contrast compared to Mexico City with its tiny winding roads, many beautiful old buildings and the atmosphere of a student’s town. If you ever make it to Guanajuato, don’t miss “El Bar”, should you love to watch fabulous Salsa dance. (Of course, you are free to dance as well …)

Querétaro

After 3 days in Guanajuato, we headed over to Querétaro, which was again a contrast to the two other places we have seen: long and straight streets, very clean, lots of Taxis everywhere – I almost felt like in Europe 😉 What I liked most about Querétaro, was in fact the beautiful “Hotel Hidalgo” we stayed in, which had a marvelous inner court. Oh yes, and there was this wonderful sunset at the church where we simply enjoyed the relaxed Mexican after work atmoshphere:

Playa del Carmen

We did not want to miss the Caribeans, so we flew from Mexico City to Cancun and travelled by bus to Playa del Carmen. There we stayed in a very nice hotel at the beach. Yeah, 10 days of laziness … not if you have a wife who wants to see the ancient pyramides in the heat of the afternoon (36C and more…). Anyway, just the right thing to relax before we went back home and back to work. Here you see three Mariachis on their way back home, at 6:30 in the morning, after a long night, right in front of our hotel:

Hasta luego

This was the smoothest journey I every experienced. We never really had any big troubles, even busses were never late, but reliable. Also, we never met any strange people. Maybe we just behaved the right way or were simply lucky – you never know. It was in fact very nice, to speak some Spanish again, but I am sure that the locals were sometimes laughing about me in my back 😉

Mexico? I’d do it again, just great!

PS: All pictures made by my wife.