We spent the first night in the quaint town of Scanzorosciate, near Bergamo. The included breakfast was the highlight (as usual) but this is the first time Rachel found a machine that would deliver cups of warm milk. She enjoyed practicing the Italian art of dipping biscotti in your warm drink...she practiced it a lot, maybe even perfected it!
We drove to Como, arriving at the exact wrong time: 1:00 pm when everything including tourist information closed down, but we got our first view of the beautiful lake. After a very brief stop in Como, we continued along the lake along an incredibly narrow, winding road to our hotel in the town of Tremezzo, directly across from the beautiful town of Bellagio. We stayed in the Hotel Azalea, right next to the Grand Hotel (true to its name) and the Villa Carlotta. We were able to check right in and had lunch on a balcony hanging over the lake. Beautiful and delicious! But what a place to work-- the waitress serving us had to run back and forth across the main thoroughfare to take our order and deliver our food. We then boarded the ferry over to Bellagio, where we wandered around for hours. First we headed out to the point where teenage boys were playing a game of soccer on a small ledge over the lake - every time the ball went into the water, the boy who kicked it in had to dive in after it. Different kind of throw in!
We sat to have a drink at a little restaurant there and pulled out our trusty cards, only to be informed that it is illegal to play cards in Italy without a permit - illegal for the restaurant and for us. We then walked up and down the steep streets of Bellagio - poking in stores and soaking in the atmosphere. Julia and Rachel practiced looking like they were caught off guard for a photo - walking down and turning to be snapped "unexpectedly" - only it didn't always go so smoothly with Julia nearly taking a tumble down the steps!
We wanted to have dinner at a restaurant on the other side of the big hill and took a very cool walk through a cobblestone path over the hill, only to find that the restaurant was all booked for the night. Next to the restaurant though we sat on a bench and felt like we had actually stepped into an impressionist oil painting. It is funny how all of our backgrounds look fake - they are really just that pretty.
After a mediocre dinner in an incredible setting on the water, we took a ferry back across to a town a few kilometers north of our hotel and had a nice walk back down by the river.
The next morning, I went on my first ever jog with Rachel. I came here prepared to throw caution to the wind for two months - no exercise regimen, plenty of pasta, bread, and gelato...but after less than one week of that living, I have to admit that I miss my exercise routine and leafy greens. I still hate jogging though. You couldn't have asked for a better companion or setting, so it wasn't all bad.
We came back and woke up the other two to make it to breakfast before it ended at 10 am. Rachel had been using her powers of persuasion since we arrived at the lake to convince us that the best way to spend Sunday was to take a boat out on the lake. She used her experiences on boats with Deb in Newport and her uncle Jeff on Lake of the Ozarks to bolster her case, and when we called and found that there was one boat available that morning, she was THRILLED.
It is only my deep, deep love for my girls that would have gotten me on a boat again, but I went and I have to admit it really is the best way to see the lake and all of the villas. (For those wondering, I did not get sick - and I only got cranky once or twice.) We drove down to George's villa - no George, and really not that impressive of a place (not that I would turn down the chance to live there).  |
| George Clooney's Villa |
Then we stopped by a more scenic villa so the girls could take a dip in the lake...but I didn't like that the boat stopped moving and started rocking in the surf, so that swim was short lived - which was ok, because Rachel would have turned blue in a matter of minutes. We took the boat back up past Bellagio and around the corner, before turning around and taking a lap around the lake's only island,
Isola Comacina. After turning in our boat, we asked the guy for a lunch recommendation and he not only recommended a place, but called first to make sure they had a table for four and gave us directions that ended with "look for a guy named Fred on a white vespa - he will show you where to go" - so we drove in the direction, and there was Fred waiting on the side of road wearing white pants and a pink shirt like a true Italian man. We followed him a little further and then down a steep alley I would not have thought a car could fit through. We were met by a car trying to come up the alley, but thankfully Fred was not willing for me to back up (I couldn't have) and made the other car drive backwards all the way back down...we then parked and headed through another little alley and into the patio of a restaurant right on the lake. The food was beautifully presented - the highlight definitely being the carpaccio of ananas (thinly sliced pineapple) with fruit sorbet that we had for dessert.
Then we hiked up over a hill (a pretty intense walk) to take a tour of the Balbianella Villa - one we had seen from the lake. The Villa dates back to the 1700s and has a long past, most recently being owned by a famous Italian explorer who turned it into a monument to himself and his expeditions to the North Pole and the top of Mt. Everest. Upon his death in 1988, it was left to an Italian preservation society. It is full of secret passageways and cool rooms - even if it was a little self-indulgent. You would recognize it from scenes in James Bond, Oceans 11, and Star Wars (Episode II). 
The long walk back to the car ended our wonderful trip to Lake Como. The drive home (to our new home in Treviso) took about 4 hours, meaning we missed watching Italy make it to the quarterfinals of Euro2012. It also meant that the best option for dinner was the Autogrill....an experience you really only needed to have once.
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