Days 3 and 4. Baveno, Isola dei Pescatori

Here are the pictures from days 3 and 4. The first few are from our Sunday walk around Feriolo. When you see the pictures of the vine growing up the wall and of my mom and an old lady standing in front of it, keep in mind this story: we were admiring the vine, and talking about how it was so strong to be growing through the cement and flourishing outside of any natural environment. An old lady sitting on a bench saw us looking at it and taking pictures of it, and she came up to us. Turns out, she's the owner of the house and the vine. She ripped off a branch of the vine and gave it to us to take with us and plant at home. She explained that she had an aunt who was her only family, and that that aunt had moved to Argentina years ago and they had lost contact. Now her only family was that vine and her "little bastard of a cat". She said it felt good to give a piece of that vine to someone from Argentina, where her aunt was. We loved that gift so much, and took pictures with her.
Anyways, the rest of the pictures are from Monday, when we walked around Verbania. We went to the public archives and found the birth certificates of almost the entire Cattaneo family! We were so excited! We only have three more of the eleven kids to find. Tomorrow we're going back to Casale Corte Cerro to get the rest of the baptism records from that priest.
Then we jumped on a ferry that took us across the lake to Isola dei Pescatori, a tiny little island with less than a hundred people but over 500 cats living on it. Then we hopped on a different ferry that took us to a small town right next to Feriolo, called Baveno. We were walking through the town when we stumbled upon one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen in my life! I asked one of the locals why this church was so much grander and more beautiful than the churches in Feriolo and Verbania, and older- looking too. He told me that the churches in the other towns are "brand new" (from the Medieval times, which is pretty new by Italian standards), but that the church in Baveno dates back to the Roman era. That's right! Some of the earliest Christians from the time of the Roman empire were using that baptistery and baptismal font! We couldn't believe it!
Anyways, today was a fantastic day as far as both site seeing and genealogy are concerned.
P.s. that tomato is supposed to look like that. It's called an Ox Heart tomato. Friggin' weird, but yummy.