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Monday, December 24, 2012

Buon Natale 2012!




From Stresa Sights to each of you.

 Auguri sinceri di un buon Natale e un felice 2013.



Sunday, December 23, 2012

Christmas Concerto -- Gospel Concert At The Stresa Convention Center


Each year during the Christmas season Stresa offers citizens and guests the opportunity to attend a free concert at the Stresa Convention Center. This building is Stresa's large, modern, cultural and business center. Throughout the year there are numerous events here, for both arts and commerce. Below is a photo of the Center, maybe you've noticed it, located on Piazzle Europa, basically behind and to the right of the Regina Palace Hotel. 



(   continued ....   )

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Un Salto Nel Passato -- A Jump Into The Past




Baveno has a winter tradition, Un Salto Nel Passato, A Jump into the Past. A year of planning, and hundreds of volunteers, are needed to organize this town-sized event, in which Baveno returns to the mid 1700s, complete with all manner of shops, trades, townspeople, and foods. The transformation of the town is magical. Wherever necessary, modern features are covered with what must be miles of bamboo sheeting. And the attention to detail is very, very impressive, from clothing, to interiors, to machines and equipment. This year, I had the pleasure of attending.

This is the way it worked: Upon arriving in Baveno's central piazza, we visited the registrars at the dazi booth, who gave us our official documents stating that we were now citizens of Baveno in the 1700s.



We then traded in our euros for a sack of francs, representing the old money of that era. We would use these later on for some nourishment in old Baveno. The term francs, I discovered, originates as a medieval term for gold coins depicting the king of the Franks, and then evolved into a currency standard in many countries throughout Europe and extending into parts of Asia and Africa. 


Then, following a marked path throughout the town, one begins a tour of 56 different shops or areas. Each was clearly labeled with its original dialect name. The first stop was the feree', the iron workers, seen in the photo below. They, as all of the volunteers, were actually 'working'; in the iron shop they were creating tools using 300-year-old methods. A charming fact to know is that many of the volunteers in this event are actual present-day practitioners of same trade they were demonstrating. And sometimes, their families had been in this trade for all these generations since the 1700s. Much of the equipment and items being used comes from personal family collections of this type. The pride of sharing these family traditions was visibly evident to me, and a unique feeling that I cannot relate to often in the U.S.


Now that I've explained the premise, let's leave 2012, let's remove all signs of the 21st century from the photographs, and let's take this jump into the past:       (  continued....   )

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Seen In Stresa: Pensieri Positivi - Positive Thoughts


Some of the shops in Stresa are closed in these winter days. Several of those have security gates pulled down over the windows. While walking through town this morning I happened to glance at this gate, at what I thought were notices or ads. Instead, I was rewarded for looking with a series of Pensieri Positivi, Positive Thoughts. Someone had taken the time to write and then carefully tape to the gate a selection of sayings. Here are a few translations:



The top saying, Ogni essere e' unico e irripetibile, means: Each being is unique and unrepeatable. It is attributed to Antonio Rosmini. Below it, attributed to Buddha, is: Noi siamo cio che abbiamo pensato, This seems to be part of a slightly longer quote: We are shaped by our thoughts, we become what we think. 
(   continued....  )

Monday, December 10, 2012

Shopping: Christmas At The Stresa Friday Market


I took a stroll around the Stresa Friday market with an eye toward Christmas gifts. Here are just a few of the items I found there:  

A great variety of women's coats and jackets in all of this year's styles, at market prices. If you have forgotten a warm enough jacket, or misjudged how the temperatures would be here, or just want some fun extra jackets for yourself or gifts, these are perfect.

  



And the guys are not left out of this either:
(   continued ....   )

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Tour: My Bavarian Christmas Market Tour From Stresa

Sono tornata! I'm back!

I never cease to be amazed at the variety of places that can be reached easily by car from Stresa. And this past week has brought this feeling right back to me, as I've been on a wonderful car trip, a loop starting from and returning to Stresa. In this trip, in which the longest driving segment was about five hours, but most were only two or three, I saw the following places:

Bolzano, Italy
 Bolzano was about three hours from Stresa. It is the capital city of the South Tyrol province in the far northeastern corner of Italy. All is bilingual in German and Italian, but German was spoken first in most places. Beautiful historic city center, closed to autos, and seemingly closed to motorbikes and scooters as well. I haven't seen this many bicycles outside of Amsterdam. Bolzano has been right at the top of the list of quality-of-living Italian cities, along with Bologna, for some years. There is also an interesting museum housing Otzi, the 5,000-year-old frozen iceman. Bolzano is a very doable day trip from Stresa. The food and beers are German. I ate goulash. 

Bolzano's Christmas market in Piazza Walther near the beautiful tiled-roof cathedral.

Bolzano, surrounded by Tyrolean mountains.
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STRESA SIGHTS by DANA KAPLAN

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