Dear Friends,

The biggest challenges of this holiday are a) finding vegetarian food other than pizza, and b) doing my leg exercises.

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The hotel (which can only be described in cliches - ´bijou´´spectacular views over the lake´etc.) has one great veggie option - but ONE. Egg-plant ravioli. Delicious on day one. Excellent on day two. Good on day three. I think we´ll venture out elsewhere tonight.

The leg exercises have been fun. Since we decided to only come with cabin baggage, I left the Nike weights and bag of wholemeal flour at home.

But the hotel has an excellent selection of paperbacks - huge and heavy: so pillow plus guide to the wines of Emilia Romagna (in Italian) plus the world´s most significant interviews 1853 - 1972, tied on with the orange scarf. Superb.

Found a variation yesterday at the lakeside: very large stone in each mountain boot, tie boots together and dangle over ankle.

This part of the world is truly beautiful - Switzerland in the summer only a zillion times bigger and with no people - the season which asts ten months has just finished.

Off for lunch (pizza?) then a LONG horseride to see a waterfall. Photos will follow. Missing you all, buddies.

Love,

Paola