My holiday started out with a night train to Florence. For all the pugs who haven't taken a night train I highly recommend it! There's no airline bag to contend with and I had a choice of bunks. I tried out the top bunk but decided it was better to be on the bottom so I could keep a watchful eye on the door.
I was even able to watch the landscape pass! It was such a nice change to those horrible transatlantic flights.
My bunk of choice.
After getting settled into Florence we headed back to the train station to pick up my human friends from Chicago. These were the friends I stayed with last summer. While waiting, we met this cute little pug whose name I have forgotten but he was really nice.
There were just so many pugs in Italy. Here's a pug who was the same age as me, seven years! As you can see, I'm much less gray than this fellow but he managed to keep his trim figure!
We spent some time in a town called Padova just outside of Venice. Here is the Prato Della Valle (aka dog park to me) just down the street from our hotel.
Every day I would meet up with the usual suspects. The pug below is Uboldo from Milan.
Here you can see Ubaldo is very fashion conscious which makes sense since he lives in Milan! I hope to see them when we go to Milan for Easter holiday.
This Italian pug mamma spoke no English but was in love with me! Who could blame her. She was owned by the two fawn pugs below. They were also quite the fashionistas!
Italy lived up to its reputation for excellent and abundant food! Here I am waiting patiently at a Deli in Padova.
This was Christmas day in Florence. Not too many cafes were open and we stumbled into this bizarre place. The older ladies were a bit out there (think makeup applied like clowns). Anyway, one of them came over with a big old meringue for me which my mom was not too excited about but let me have a little taste as the woman insisted it was good for me!
Italy is so dog friendly that I even went out for happy hour to the bar with my parents. Here I am enjoying my bar seating.
Did I mention all the great bakeries? These are even better than the swiss or french as they like to put ham and cheese on everything!
I was a bit miffed by this vending machine. It was New Years day and I was out to find some good food. I thought for sure this vending machine would have some scrumptious junk food and insisted my mom lift me so I could select something de-lish. Who would have thought there would only be boxes of condoms, lube, and pregnancy kits. Argh! Later we happened on another machine that only sold cigarettes.
This was our hotel room in Padova. I stayed in for the New Years festivities since I don't care for the noise of fireworks. I didn't mind as I enjoyed a nice pig ear!
This is what my parents saw. I don't know what the big deal is about those burning lights.
We took a afternoon train back to Geneva from Padova but went first class. When we got to our seats I had a nice friend across the isle from me. Of course I can't remember her name but she was very well behaved and may have made me look bad when I barked a few times.
Here I am in my seat in first class. It was nice and spacious and once again I could view the countryside as we traveled back home.
I was a king in Burgundy. My parents were tasting some red drink called Prieure Roch but I enjoyed some fine mineral water served at the table! (See picture below!)
Here are the wines from Prieure Roch that are made by Henry Frederic Roch and his second man Yannick Champ. Henry Roch is the co-directore of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti which according to the experts is a fine wine.
I finally gave up and headed over to the grand fireplace where I did my impersonation of a French bulldog.
Here's me and my bud, Chico sniffing out all the dogs that have passed before us on this chateaus land.
I really think my mom had enough to drink at this point and was trying to tell her to get those other humans to start eating!
Even sitting by the stove didn't speed things along!
We did finally eat and I was rewarded with some nice beef burgundy!
