Pink soup and George Clooney??? (Our trip to the World Fair and Lake Como)

Since I'm catching up on lost time, here's another post for your viewing pleasure.

Two weeks ago we had a nice, three-day weekend, (thanks to an Italian holiday) and we took full advantage!

 For the first-half, we visited "The Lakes", Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. This is a popular vacation spot for Italians where people come to just relax. The area is beautiful, surrounded by the Alps. Beautiful, aristocratic villas and resort villages line the shores.

And yes, this is where George Clooney spends much of his time. While we didn't see Clooney, who needs him when ya got the handsome Billy Evans?












Sadly, it rained most of the time we were here, but we did manage to squeeze in a visit to Villa del Balbianello. This dreamy 18th century villa was last owned by explorer Guido Monzino. The home is full of his collections, including his memorabilia from his North Pole and Mount Everest adventures. This is also where movies such as "Casino Royale" and "Star Wars: Episode II" were filmed.

After A LOT of R&R, (thanks to the rain), we ventured off to Milan to attend "2015 Expo Milano".  The World Fair is only held once every five years, and this year it just happens to be in Milan, so we got lucky! More than 140 countries are participating, contributing to the theme, "Feeding the Planet; Energy for Life". Yes, we're talking food!






All in all, and just to keep it real, we were pretty disappointed. The fair was jam-packed with the most popular exhibits having hour-long lines. We managed to see a few, and what we did see, was nothing more than a glorified adult science fair full of advertising. Most exhibits consisted primarily of flat-screen TVs projecting images of food, no real samples to try.

With that being said, we did see a few cool things. For starters, we ate lunch in the Polish exhibit (mainly because it didn't have a line). I about gagged when I realized I had ordered cold, Pepto-Bismol-colored soup. But guess what? It ended up being scrumptious! Apparently, its called Chlodnik and is made-up of beets, giving it that color.

We also saw a beautiful village, made entirely out of chocolate, and Billy finally met his match at the nutella concept store.

And of course, we had to visit the good ol' USA exhibit. Do you know how long its been since I had a BBQ sandwich??  This one, however, ended up costing us $11, and really didn't taste much like the southern BBQ I'm used to.

After a lot of eating, we finally were ready to head home, maybe with no star-sightings to brag about but with plenty of food to tickle us "pink".

Until next time, Ciao!