The 2025 Morgan Europe Trip

 March 26, 2025  Wandering around Porto Ceresio  &  a link to the Villa's listing on Airbnb "Porto Ceresio: a port in the green. A charming Italian town on Lake Lugano originally called Lake Ceresio, the last piece of Italy leaning towards Switzerland in the middle of the Lombardy lakes." Today, we selected a small lake town for a brief visit. It was only a 20 minute drive. We walked along the boardwalk, took in the views, tried their gelato, and came home. On the boardwalk looking back at shore. Clare The view looking across the lake to the right. Life in the Villa. Here is a link to Airbnb for some pictures of Villa Cambiaghi built in 1890 as a summer home. The grandparents of Valentina bought the home in 1938 and, after the bombing of Milan in 1943, were forced to move here full time until the war ended and the family was able to return to Milan and resume using the villa as a summer home. In 2017, Valentina and Adriano began living here full time again after ...

 March 25, 2025   Turin, Italy ("Torino", in Italian) "Turin's intriguing history began in 218 BC, when Hannibal reached the Piedmont plains with the Carthaginian army. Following the arrival of Julius Caesar in 58 BC, the wooden housing cluster became known as Roman Turin, a strategic colony that expanded and changed its name to Augusta Taurinorum in 28 BC. After the fall of the empire, the town was fortified by the Ostrogoths, then Turin fell into the hands of the Lombards and the Franks, before finally becoming an episcopal principality at the crucial junction between Flanders and Italy." (Source: italia.it) The reason we went to Turin was to see the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Christ. For more information on the Shroud, see this website: https://www.shroud.com/ We drove to a tram station on the northeast side of Turin and rode downtown to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in the heart of the city where the Shroud has been preserved since 1578. Th...

 March 24, 2025   **Grace to the Airport**😢 Today was an uneventful day. We took Grace to the Milan airport 40 minutes away, washed clothes, planned our trip to Turin for the following day, grocery shopped, got gas, walked around the villa grounds, and ate 1/2 kg of  grocery store gelato in our wing of the villa. (Not as good as gelato shop's gelato.)

 March 23, 2025    **Santa Maria del Monte** On a mountain, sits an old little town that has 15 chapels leading up to it. The idea came from the Franciscans during the 1490's as an alternative pilgrimage to the Holy Land since current political events made travel to the Middle East impossible. We cheated a bit by taking a bus to the first chapel and hopped on a funicular for a ride up the mountain.  We had the funicular to ourselves. The other car coming down. Almost to the top. At the top, we took in the views. It was sprinkling on and off. From there, we went into the Baroffio Museum which was the collection of Giuseppe Baroffio that he donated upon his death in 1929. Most of the paintings date from the 15th-17th century. Here are some of my favorites. This painter loved details!  Here is a closer look.  Jesus falls under the cross, painted in the 16th century Card players, 17th century We have been playing a lot of cards on this trip! Madonna and Child, ...