breakfast at the hotel pergola

Breakfast is the time of day when weary travelers drag themselves out of bed and gather to share stories of the day before and the day to come.

At the Hotel Pergola, we shared breakfast with Gary Cooper and his wife Michelle (not their real names) and Kevin and Jan. Gary and Michelle live outside Seattle, Washington. I called him Gary because he had that Gary Cooper look - tall, thin, slow movements, and good hair. Gary was, in his words, a motorcycle buff, and so he was off to tour a local motorcycle factory near Como. His wife Michelle, was a junior high school counseler, who greatfully is able to put all her worries about teenage problems on the shelf while she vacations in Europe for the summer.

Kevin and Jan were from Ponca City, Oklahoma (again not their real names). He works as an educational counselor for the military in Germany. He has been doing it for the last 29 years and is set to retire next year and move back to Oklahoma. Jan has only recently come to Germany. She was divorced for 26 years before meeting Kevin again at a high school reunion and deciding to come to Europe and find a job. They are planning to get married in Denmark on an island later this year.

Everybody has a story. The variety of the stories is endless, but the common theme is restless people always looking for the new and different.