STRESA PALMS
The name of Stresa, Italy first appeared in documents in 998.
I went to visit in the month of March. It was rainy, but I always love how mountains look after rain. I think these would be beautiful anytime. The snow caps, the water, the palms, the pasta!
Tunneling of the Simplon Pass allowed train service from north of the Alps to pass through Stresa, in 1906, significantly increasing tourism.
As always, I wanted to walk around and see the unusual, the views that catch my eye. Like the impressive, mysterious, eerily vacant old villas along the water… (endowed by European aristocrats in the mid-19th century)
LEFT BEHIND
Talk about prime real estate. Why are there so many incredible vacant properties? with one of the best views in the world? the Alps. I want to go back in time and see who lived here and what the places looked like in their prime. I want to be a dinner guest at a party there, go out on the terrace with a glass of champagne in the evening and take the view in:
Lake Maggiore
TWISTED
I love the outline of the limbs against the sky and water, how they twist and curl and creep.
HELL'S KITCHEN
Ha, I HAVE watched too many episodes of Hell’s Kitchen when I see the pitchfork during a walk in Italy!
I had great food in Stresa, but of course! I walked, I read, I took pictures. The world is a wonderful place to explore.
Because we are mortal, every talent, skill, ability we possess, every thought and feeling we ever have, every beautiful sight we ever see, every material possession we own, will ultimately be lost.
Unless we share it.
Unless we give what we have to others – to our spouse, to our child, to our friends and neighbors, to the strangers we encounter on our path – what we know and value will be irrevocably and utterly gone.
~from “The Practice of Kindness”
Donum of Visum 