"Balcony Angel" on Lago d'Iseo

A year after the pandemic lockdowns in Italy lifted and travel was again legal, one of our trips was to Italy’s northern Lakes. Our “mission” was to gather information about the region for clients who might be visiting there in the future. We spent a few nights in a tiny town right on Lago d’Iseo, usually bypassed altogether by travelers.

Walking to dinner one night, on the one street in town, we came across this “Balcony Angel” on her terrace, eating an ice cream cone.

She saw us looking at the door of her home, so she called down to us. We had a 10-minute lesson in the town's history. The door we were admiring is 1000 years old, and the street we were walking on used to be a canal, just like Venice. The smaller doors (some in use today, some walled up but their arches were still visible), were launches for boats.

“His Italian is good, but what about you?” she asked me, pointing at Matt, since he had been doing most of the chatting.

“I try, but I find it's hard to learn,”, I replied.

“Where are you from? Holland? England?” she inquired.

“We're from the United States, but we live here now. We moved here three months before the pandemic,” I said.

“Stay here. It's better. Stay here and don't go back,” she said.

We fully intend to, Balcony Angel!