Keep calm and pierogi on. What the Fox is this Food?

 

 

We set off south from foggy Kraków in the morning, making a stop at Lidl to stock up on sandwich supplies before hitting the road. Scott wasn’t particularly impressed with Polish drivers, so we decided to focus on the positives: the gorgeous, colourful autumn scenery, the forests, and, before long, the spectacular Tatra Mountains.

Two hours later, we’d crossed the border into Slovakia and arrived at Bachledka, where we planned to tackle a short treetop trail high above the forest. We parked, took the cable car up, and set off on foot. The trail itself was only about 400–500 metres long, but the views were absolutely stunning. Once we’d finished the walk, we continued uphill to the observation tower. And then, for reasons I still don’t entirely understand, I allowed Scott to talk me into taking the mountain slide back down instead of enjoying a perfectly peaceful walk. The thrill cost €3, and I saved myself at least 500 steps. I’m still not entirely sure whether that counts as awin.

After our little treetop adventure, we checked the time and realised we could just about squeeze in a visit toSkalnaté Pleso. So off we went! Not because the mountain was about to close, of course, but because the last cable car gondola down leaves at 4 p.m., and I had absolutely no desire to scramble down a mountainside in near darkness.

We took two different gondolas to reach the top, admired a mixture of snowy and snow-free mountain scenery, and enjoyed a walk around the alpine lake. And then, just when we thought the views were the main attraction, we met a fox. Luckily, this particular fox seemed to be living its best life on a good diet. It was beautiful, well-fed, and more than happy to pose for the camera. A very experienced model, really.

With the mountain adventures behind us, we turned our attention to a rather important question: where on earth were we going to sleep that night? We hadn’t booked any accommodation, so we had to choose between a local village and Poprad. Poprad looked promising in the photos, with a charming old town and what appeared to be a slightly more exciting food scene than the village we’d just driven through. Decision made - Poprad it was!

We arrived, and the entrance to the city felt a little like we were driving into a local industrial estate. Not quite the picturesque Slovakian town we’d imagined. Thankfully, our hotel room had mountain views, which helped improve the situation somewhat. At least the mountains were still doing their job.

I’d picked out two restaurants in advance, figuring we could have a lovely stroll through the colourful old town before deciding which one looked more appealing.

Except there was one tiny problem. The entire city centre was a construction site.

Yes, the whole reason we’d chosen Poprad - its supposedly charming old town - was dug up and fenced off. We could only shuffle along the edges of buildings, and our view of the church was limited to peering through holes in the construction fencing. There genuinely didn’t seem to be a single street in the centre that wasn’t being worked on. So much for our romantic evening stroll through a picturesque Slovakian town.

Since it was still too early for dinner, we decided to visit the local shopping centre instead. It didn’t exactly blow us away either, so we eventually headed to a craft brewery restaurant, hoping that at least the food would redeem the evening.

First, we had to ask for an English menu approximately three times, as our Slovakian skills have yet to reachthe advanced level of deciphering restaurant menus.

Eventually, the food arrived. And, well, let’s just say it failed to make much of an impression. The tartare was described on the menu as being served with “dry and greasy bread”. An intriguing combination, to say the least. It turned out that half the bread slices were toasted, while the other half had been panfried in oil. In a surprising plot twist, the bread turned out to be the best part of the entire dinner. The so-called tartare was essentially minced meat swimming in sauce. The onion rings, supposedly beer-battered, looked as though they’d come straight out of a frozen food packet. The trout, which appeared to have been on a diet, was served on top of some sort of stewed cabbage. The burger was… more or less okay. Not a culinary experience we’ll be writing home about.

We walked back to the hotel, admired the mountains one more time, and went to bed.

One Lake View at a Time. How we didn’t see George Clooney

 

 

Yesterday morning started with us still recovering from the day before. Saskia needed roughly an hour just to get out of bed at all. Gerli and I had enough time to go to the shop and come back before Saskia had progressed as far as breakfast porridge. The rest of the day continued at the same impressive pace.

We did a little shopping and then Gerli found a restaurant next to the cathedral - the same cathedral whose bells we hear approximately eighteen times a day - where apparently all pasta dishes could also be made gluten-free. Excellent. We went there immediately. Once seated, we discovered that yes, they could indeed make the pasta gluten-free, but the options were either cream sauce or snails. Saskia was not exactly overwhelmed with excitement. Since they also had lasagne on the menu, I asked whether they could perhaps just make her a simple Bolognese instead. They could. Even better, Saskia got a warm gluten-free seeded bread roll straight from the oven, while Gerli and I were given an entire paper bag full of normal ciabatta. I ordered carpaccio, and when it arrived Gerli looked at it and asked whether I had forgotten to order actual food.

I had also been looking into operators offering boat tours on Lake Como. Apparently nobody really does big group tours, while the smaller private ones I found were around €600, which seemed slightly excessive for an hour of sitting in a boat. Today, however, we randomly walked into a shop that was selling one-hour private tours for considerably less. Considerably. Everything sounded perfect right up until the moment Saskia announced, “Nope, I don’t want to.” We tried logic, enthusiasm and mild emotional manipulation. Nothing worked.

We walked around a bit more until both younger members of the group declared themselves exhausted and went back to the apartment. I decided to take the funicular up the mountain instead. We had tried doing this the day before yesterday, but the queue had been out the door, so we had sensibly postponed it. This time I arrived at the station and there was nobody there at all. Also, none of the ticket machines were working, which at first looked less promising. Then I noticed signs explaining that, as part of some European mobility day, all rides were free. You might think this would attract crowds. Apparently not. I walked straight in and about a minute later the train started heading up.

The views were fantastic, and I had timed it perfectly for sunset. Coming back down was slightly less elegant. There were a few hundred people in the queue. The ladies behind me kept stepping out of line to admire the sunset and then, on returning, tried to casually slide back in front of me. I put my arm out and pointed firmly behind me with my thumb. For the remaining five minutes, one of them kept looking at me, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. I managed to survive the criticism.

Today’s plan was to introduce Gerli and Saskia to life outside the European Union. And what better place to do that than an outlet village in Switzerland? At 9:45 we headed towards the railway station, and by 10:40 we were standing outside the closed shopping centre waiting for it to open. Eventually we were allowed in, and two hours later our entire haul consisted of one bag of Lindt chocolate. International shopping success.

Things improved slightly in Nike, and then considerably at a Thai bistro, where we had avocado-mango salad, fried rice and avocado-salmon-mango tartare. After that we felt ready to return to Italy.

Meanwhile, I had also booked the boat tour. Enzo was supposed to meet us at the harbour at 5 p.m. The harbour, as it turned out, was not the convenient one right next to our apartment but another one about 1.5 kilometres away, so we had to hurry. Saskia was still not convinced that this boat trip was a good idea. However, as she had temporarily lost voting rights on the matter, she got into the boat anyway.

Enzo immediately took off across the lake at speed, water spraying everywhere. Gerli grabbed the side of the boat, while Saskia, after approximately three minutes, decided that this was actually quite fun and started making TikToks. Enzo pointed out various luxury villas and at one point even let Saskia drive the boat. Gerli did not appear entirely convinced by Saskia’s ability to steer with her right hand while taking selfies and filming TikToks with her left, and she was not especially discreet about expressing this concern.

The hour passed very quickly. More precisely, in about an hour. Enzo helped us out onto a very wet dock, where we put our shoes back on over our now equally wet socks. Also - choosing one-hour tour over two-hour tour meant that we turned around before seeing George Clooney’s villa.

After the boat tour Saskia announced that her activities for the day were officially over, she was going back to the apartment, and we should please bring her water and sushi.

So Gerli and I went for another walk. We wandered through the Old Town, looked around some shops, and somehow ended up in front of a church where there seemed to be some sort of gathering involving a priest, a rainbow flag, a Ukrainian flag and around twenty people. We placed the order for the sushi and then hurried back to the lake one more time to catch an absolutely beautiful pink sunset.

One Lake View at a Time. Barbies shopping, lame sushi town and toll scam

 

The morning started with oatmeal and espresso. The plan for the day was to start at the Franciacorta outlets, then drive around Lake Iseo and have a look at some of the villages there. Before heading back to Como, I also wanted to introduce Gerli and Saskia to Bergamo, one of my favourite old towns in Italy. And, perhaps even more importantly, to the best scissorpizza in the world.

The first obstacle of the day appeared before we had even left Como. A market had been set up overnight, and Gerli would probably have been perfectly happy staying right there among the mohair sweaters instead of going anywhere near the outlets. I, however, had made a plan, so naturally everybody had to follow it. We made our way to the parking garage, collected the car and headed off. Unfortunately, the Italians had not learned how to drive overnight, so Gerli’s opinion from yesterday remained firmly unchanged.

We eventually made it to Franciacorta and wandered around a few shops before deciding it was time for lunch. We chose a cafeteria-style place where all the food was displayed in front of us, mostly because it seemed easier to point at something that looked edible than to try to guess what might be hiding behind an unfamiliar Italian word. Gerli had risotto, which was good but came in a portion large enough to feed a village in Africa. I had vitello tonnato, which was very good, followed by tuna with roast potatoes. The tuna had unfortunately been cooked until it had given up all hope, and the potatoes were somehow watery despite supposedly being roasted. Saskia had a fruit cup, which she approved of, and chicken-and-pork skewers with roast potatoes, which were apparently a bit dry. Then I was asked whether I wanted coffee or espresso. I said coffee. I got espresso. Apparently it had not really been a question.

Shopping went considerably better after lunch. We found clothes and a handbag at Calvin Klein, a Starbucks mug, and eventually a pink Barbie suitcase from another shop. The suitcase was actually a “logistical necessity” on this trip, because we were rapidly reaching the stage where getting everything back to Estonia would otherwise involve leaving either some clothes or one family member behind.

After the outlets we drove towards Iseo, which turned out to be a very cute little town by the lake of the same name. We walked around for a while, took the usual unreasonable number of photos and generally liked it a lot. Compared with Como it felt much calmer and less crowded, which was rather nice after the tourist chaos we had been experiencing there.

From Iseo we continued along the lake, driving through some of the smaller lakeside villages in the general direction of Bergamo. I say “general direction” because at some point I managed to navigate us the wrong way and added a completely unnecessary 16-kilometre loop to the journey. Unscenic detour.

By the time we reached Bergamo, we had a very simple and, in theory, completely foolproof dinner plan. Gerli and I would get scissorpizza, Saskia would get sushi somewhere else, and then we would all sit somewhere together and eat. The pizza part worked beautifully. We chose our slices and about ten minutes later were walking through Bergamo carrying two enormous pizzas and feeling very pleased with ourselves. The sushi part was less successful. There was no sushi. We kept walking. Still no sushi. There also seemed to be nowhere selling anything remotely suitable to take away. There was a sweet shop, but even Saskia did not consider candy to be a proper dinner. Eventually we found a restaurant whose menu had a couple of salads that looked potentially acceptable. The only problem was that they would not let us sit there with our pizzas. Fair enough. We asked whether we could sit there if we promised not to eat them. No. Could we order Saskia’s salad, go somewhere else to eat our pizzas, and then come back so she could eat her salad? Also no. Our rather creative dining arrangement was clearly not going to happen.

So we went to a nearby park and ate our pizzas there with a group of local pigeons watching us very closely. The pizzas were excellent, so at least that part of the evening lived up to expectations. We also had some free entertainment because a wedding couple was having their photos taken nearby. The bride looked lovely, but her veil had clearly had a hard day. By this point it had gone from bridal white to something closer to seal grey and was collecting fallen leaves and assorted Bergamo street debris as it dragged along behind her. At least she would have plenty of physical souvenirs from the city.

Once we had finished the pizzas, we returned to the restaurant and ordered Saskia a roast beef salad and me an affogato. We specifically asked for everything to come together. Naturally, the first thing that arrived was a paper bag full of bread. Then came the water, which to be fair we had actually ordered. Then Saskia’s salad appeared. My affogato was nowhere to be seen. It then became clear that Saskia was not particularly impressed by medium rare roast beef, so she ate the greenery underneath it instead. Not that there was exactly a meadow hiding under there. Possibly ten leaves of lettuce. Eventually my affogato arrived too. We had the roast beef packed up to take away, stopped at the sweet shop, and finally headed back towards the car to drive to Como.

This was when the highway decided that the day had not yet contained enough entertainment. There are toll booths every 10–15 minutes or so, all very helpfully labelled in Italian so that tourists can enjoy a small reading-comprehension exercise while approaching several lanes at motorway speed. Most of the time we managed to work out which lanes were for locals with subscriptions and chose one of the others. At one point, however, there were large European Union flags above some lanes and then white signs with Italian writing above the others. We are Europeans. There were EU flags. The decision seemed obvious, so we drove under the flags. About 20 minutes later, we discovered that perhaps this had not been the correct interpretation. We arrived at the next toll station and, unlike every previous time, no nice little amount appeared on the screen for us to pay. Instead, there was some Italian text. We pressed a button. Nothing happened. We pressed another button. Still nothing. The drivers behind us started honking, which surprisingly also did not make the machine work. Eventually we found the customer-service button and pressed that. A man’s voice appeared and wanted to know why we did not have a ticket. Because we were not coming to a Celine Dion concert? Apparently not the answer he was looking for. He then asked where we had come from. Como, we said. A number appeared on the screen: €73. There was a short silence before the Soviet woman in the passenger seat announced that there was absolutely no way we were paying €73 when every previous toll had been somewhere between €1.80 and €3.70. So we waited. The cars behind us continued expressing their opinions through their horns. Eventually a woman who had been moving around between the lanes helping various confused drivers reached us and asked where our ticket was. We did not have one. She asked where we had come from. Como. She pressed a few buttons and the amount on the screen changed from €73 to €6.50. Much better. We paid and escaped. At the next toll station we decided that, despite being proud Europeans, we would no longer follow the EU flags. Instead, we tried one of the lanes with the mysterious white signs. And that was where we discovered the machine that gives you the little ticket. The ticket that both the man and the woman had been asking us about earlier. Ah. Mystery solved.

We made it back to Como after dark, ordered sushi for Saskia because approximately ten baby lettuce leaves had not managed to keep her fed for very long, and called it a day.