fall & fog

Such is life in Veneto.

Hope you have a lovely week.
xoxo
Dana

lago di fimon // birreria miralago

We spent a day on bikes in the area of Lago di Fimon recently. I know...you expect me to extol the beauties of the lake.  It's more like a pond, a stagnant pond, and while folks fish there, I'm quite certain that I would avoid any fish whose origin is Lago di Fimon. However, except for that particularly smelly part near the half-way point of the trail, the path around the lake is quite lovely with a variety of plant life, hissing swans, and feral cats, and I encourage you to explore it on a cool day.

We did just that Saturday with friends from the paese. A great biking adventure along a path that initiates in Valsugana was thwarted by possible bad weather and a sick child. Our back-up plan was the pond...eh...Lago di Fimon. 

And, well, I have a great recommendation at the end of these bucolic photos from my iPhone...

Crawfish have invaded the lake and are wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem; locals call them Gamberi Killer. A recent article in the local newspaper warned that we should not eat them. I'm not sure if I'm buying that, but I doubt I'll be hosting a crawfish boil either. "Wasted opportunity!" says the Cajun in me.

We left Young One with the neighbors for a picnic and made our own giro of the lago, stopping at a place near the lake with a great selection of beers. Oh, yes we did!

Our friend Michael, who was one of those visiting people from July, the one who took us to La Pria, found an absolute gem of a place on/near Lago di Fimon: Birreria Miralago. 

We shared a (pizza dough) bruschetta with blue cheese, walnuts and Speck along with a couple of beers. They have several from Germany and Belgium on tap; I chose a Belgian St.Bernardus white beer that brought me joy. I don't recall if the selection includes Italian beers, but really, why bother?

Everything was superb, including the lovely terrace. I recommend that you give it a try; just head to Lago di Fimon and continue until the last parking area, where the birreria is on the right. They are both child and pet friendly :)

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Btw...there is a man-made lake stocked with trout that is just a bit past Lago di Fimon. You show up, fish, and pay for those you take home.  Not ideal but perhaps a better choice for fish than Fimon, as long as you don't think too much about what they might be feeding those fish. Just follow the road that runs near the birreria.

weekend (-ing)

::: I'm thinking I might need this for my bike.

::: She started Friday evening in the best of moods, dancing and singing as we awaited friends. She ended in an emotional meltdown, a meltdown very public and very ugly. She is not an easy child, this Young One of ours. Her feelings are so big, so serious, so real, so very intense and, at times, so much out of her control. I thought it was getting better...I thought I was getting better...apparently not.

{Saturday morning I took a walk around Lago Fimon, a lake nestled within the Colli Berici.}

::: I knew to stay away from these guys when they showed absolutely no fear of my friend's big dog; instead, they hissed at the dog.

 ::: This is exactly what it looks like: crawfish! It made me a bit homesick to see a little girl catching them with her net.

::: Got it?

::: It's nice to have friends with "connections": this time she hooked us up with Mozzarella di Bufala that was bussed up to us directly from Napoli Friday, a treat I was happy to share with friends Saturday evening. It looks so patriotic, doesn't it? I can't think of a similar American dish that captures the colors of our flag so naturally well. Can you?

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Hope you had a lovely weekend, too :)

searching for focus

Working really hard on finding focus, direction, and clarity in this back-to-school frenzy that has overtaken our lives . . .

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