Sometimes a trip turns out better than you can imagine even in your wildest dreams…my weekend trip to the Italian Alps, together with my friend and colleague Danish Nadeem, turned out to be just like that. While I expected the trip to be beautiful, the Alps are a beautiful piece of nature after all, I never expected such a warm welcome from such beautiful people…
Last Friday, Danish and I left, damn early in the morning I must say, from Aachen Hbf to continue on a eight hour journey, via Switzerland, to Domodossola, Italy where we were picked up by Danish’s friend Agnese and her sister Arianne (Ari). No time was left to have a short rest as Agnese already started on what turned out a three day guided tour; only a quick pitstop was made to pick up her bella amica Marianne (Mari), after which we continued at high speeds meandering across the valleys, a couple of honks here and some flashes of light there, to finally reach Formazza cascada: the Formazza waterfall. At first, the almost-Dutch rain prevented us from having a look from the top, so we decided to go for a nice cappuccino to warm us up again, after which we dared to have a look over the ever-more daunting edge which made the continuous stream of water a lot more impressive than at first sight.
We continued our journey to drop off our bags at Agnese’s, who was living in a huge three appartment house, that she shared with her granny and her granny’s sister, warmly welcomed by her family. We had some time to quickly refresh ourselves because in the evening we were expected to have dinner at Agnese’s parent’s summer house; I was quite surprised when Agnese’s stopped her car on the road side where no houses were clearly present. It turned out we need to have a short hike across a thundering mountain stream to reach our evening dinner. Again, we were warmly welcomed by Agnese’s parents, her father immediately reminding me of the Italian team’s defeat against the Dutch at the previous European Football Championship :). What followed was a pleasant mix of Italian, Italian Dialect, English, Dutch, Hindi, German, and sign language. Danish had told Agnese that I knew a little Italian (not so much really, but I picked a bit up from my Italian friends) and soon it was decided that I after all did speak Italian 
Luckily, we both could pick up some bits of conversations and while most of us didn’t speak each other languages (well) it was a splendid evening, which can only be described fully by the Dutch word gezellig! The fine atmosphere was also supported by the delicious food (cibo delizioso) Agnese’s mum prepared for us. Too soon the evening passed, but I must confess that I was happy when I finally had the chance to lie down and pass out…after a quite intensive week at work and a long journey, I think both of us were quite devastated.
Next morning, we woke up early and after a real Italian breakfast with coffee, cookies, and chocolate salami 
we were joined by witty Ari and headed for Devero, a nature reserve in the Italian Alps, which was amazingly beautiful. I was really impressed when Agnese showed me all the ‘big-ass’ mountains she had climbed, and was quite fearing she would take us to one of those snowy tops 
Luckily, we “only” went for a long walk to a beautiful Lago, which made Danish decide he wouldn’t return to the NL after all and because he had our train tickets I had an excuse to stay there as well. In the evening, we went for a party in neighbouring village, a party organised by the local banda with nice food, I had ravioli, music, and in the end fireworks. Here our beginners course Italian really started as Ari got really enthousiastic, slightly dropping her fear of speaking English and explaining us how to say this and this in Italian. After the fireworks, we left to a “younger” party in another village, where we were joined by lovely Mari. There, also a band was playing and soon I found myself discovering new sides to my colleague as he took his friend Agnese out to dance. Then, I really wished the namesake had been there to videotape it to keep it for the future generations (and to use in black mailing scams of course). Unfortunately, Genesis’ I can’t dance song also applies to yours truly, but luckily I found myself in the company of Mari, communicating in a mix of English and Italian, sadly finding out that we had much more in common than I already thought (take care lassie!). As we didn’t want the evening to end we drove to Domodossola, but soon found out that a busy day had taken its toll, finally arriving at home at 2.30 and going for a much deserved night’s rest.
Sunday, our last full day, was one driven by Danish’s chocoladdiction and the quest to get good Swiss chocolade and more importantly to prevent it from melting in a hot car, which horribly failed in the end. This day we went for a swim in Laggo Magiore, believe it or not, my first swim in ten years. The swim was a good cool-down from the high temperatures we had on Saturday and Sunday, which had me looking like an Indian (rosso, feathers, no dot). It was a great time, which made me wonder why I didn’t swim in such a long time. At five, we were cooled down enough, starting to feel hungry and sleepy, swimming has that effect on me at least. In the evening, we went for Domodossola to eat a delicious pizza, mine a Norvegese (no Napoli!) with salmon, although really nice, too much for me to eat alone. Afterwards, we of course went for Italian ice cream and were given a small tour of the city by Ari, who worked at a tourist office, in surprisingly good English; she finally had given up her fear of speaking :).
This being our last evening there, it was also an evening of good byes, which made me feel a little melancholic and in the end it was quite hard to say good bye to such nice and beautiful people. This occasion gave me a total different perspective on Italy, next to the work-related and tourist one. Seldom have I, as a stranger, received such a warm welcome and met such nice people: cheerful Agnese, open, active, and a perfect guide, witty Ari with the sparkling eyes, also cheerful, full of jokes (half of which I couldn’t understand), and the other half of the duo Mari, quiet, shyish but also full of jokes, mostly aimed at the other half Ari Also, Agnese’s family which were ever-so accommodating to have us for two whole days! This has been a trip I won’t ever forget and after two days I’m still smiling about all those beautiful memories made. Thank you!