In search of the great outdoors

I love Paris. I love the rainy weekend afternoons in the Louvre, the cozy cafes, the cobblestone alleyways lined with glowing boutiques, and the metro musicians who serenade commuters and lovers alike with Bach and Mozart... something here makes me smile every day.

A few weeks ago, however, I started to feel antsy. "Self, chill out," I said, but after a few more days, antsyness had become a nagging anxiety. I ate more chocolate and drank more wine (this has become my first response to any problem in Paris) -- I even went on a few runs -- but the feeling wouldn't go away.

All of a sudden, it hit me: I hadn't been in the great outdoors since January. A Californian used to equally quick access to beautiful mountains and miles-long beaches, city life had started to wear me thin. The Tuileries, however beautiful, were not cutting the mustard when it came to outdoorsiness -- I mean, come on, the trees are pruned into cubes and you can't even lie on the grass. I needed to climb something, go on a real run, hike, bike ride -- in short, I needed what the French call a "petit weekend." Parisians love Paris (there was an evening lecture at SciencesPo a few weeks ago examining the question "Paris: est-elle le centre du monde?" or, "Paris: is it the center of the world?"), but sometimes even Paris can get a bit insupportable. The desire to escape the pressure of living at the center of the world drives Parisians (and curly-haired history majors) to do a petit weekend in the countryside.

In search of a travel buddy and some ideas, I called my very dear friend Rachel, who is spending the year studying in Bologna. She, too, was ready to escape the city, and we quickly made plans to spend four days in Menaggio, a tiny town on the edge of Lake Como in northern Italy.

Let me tell you: this place is phenomenal. Lake Como is one of three big lakes in northern Italy and southern Switzerland, all formed by glaciers melting into deep valleys. The lake was almost Tahoe blue, and was surrounded first by bucolic hills (dotted with tiny, red-roofed towns) and then, close behind, big snow-capped mountains. The air was fresh, the roads uncrowded, and the sound of the lake lapping against the shore as soothing as the constant horns in Paris are not.

Though it was raining the first day we were there, in the weekend we still managed to make it to a nature reserve, take in some spectacular views from a little white church that clings to the side of one of the hills, and do a lot of walking. Oh, and we ate -- gelato, prosciutto di Parma, parmiggiano, fantastic pizza, great gnocchi... though I will never say a word against the food in Paris, I will say it was nice to eat food whose main ingredient was not butter. And, although my Italian is a bit rusty (I confused pesce, fish, with pesca, peach...fish-flavored gelato, anyone?), it was good enough to be able to chat with a few very sweet people in town... though no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince one man that George Washington and Napoleon were in fact very different.

After four days of lake-side bliss, I'm back in France... antsyness gone, outdoors fix successful. Back to loving city life...