No Stresa

Have spent the last few days with the fam in the picturesque lake town of Stresa.

It has all the necessary ingredients for a newly-wed-and-nearly-dead tourist hellhole.

Romantic sunsets:

Emerald islands capped with Rococo palaces (the very height of 18th century tackiness, so I took no pictures. But there was one very cool tapestry that showed a unicorn--the symbol of the Borromeo family--goring a lion with its horn. In the foreground: a land-lobster. In the background: antelope copulating. Marvellous.):


Rare albino peacocks (currently whipped into a mad mating frenzy):

The "Miss Stresa" Beauty Pageant:
And busloads, and busloads, and busloads of elderly German/Swiss tourists and their sweeties:

BUT. Despite all of these horrors, we have in fact enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. Largely because one can shrug off all the crap and focus on the genuinely lovely landscape. So there has been some climbing

and some hiking
and general chillaxing (here on the whale rock).
We somehow managed to arrange to stay at the B+B of the lovely Rossana and Francesco, charming and hospitable mountaineers. So all the frou-frou Stresa silliness was kept at a reasonable distance.