We spent today cruising Lake Como. It was absolutely gloriously beautiful. There were a couple rough spots. We need not talk about them.
While yesterday had been somewhat hazy, today the air was perfectly clear. In the early light, not long past dawn, we could stand on our deck and admire Varenna.
I also stopped to take a picture of the fountain next to our apartment. This is clearly much older than the buildings surrounding it, but I have not been able to figure our anything about it from any guidebook I can find. It appears to filter water from a spring high on the cliff above us. Is this the Fiumelatte stream itself? It seems like that would be larger and better marked. But I have not found that on a map, either.
We went down relatively early to the ferry dock in Varenna. We walked along the path along the cliff. Sherry looked stylish, as always.
We had briefly considered renting a boat and trying to sail around the lake ourselves, but there is frequent boat service each small community, so it hardly seemed worth the expense. As we left Varenna, we had another opportunity to admire this beautiful community.
Our first stop was arguably the most famous spot on the lake, Bellagio. Lake Como is shaped a bit like an upside down Y. Bellagio is located at the tip of a peninsula where the two southern arms of the lake come together. It is not one community, but a cluster of small hamlets and villages. When we landed, the rest of our group was eager to have some breakfast. John and I took a hokey little fake train that made a 25 minute circuit of the village. Along the way, we saw a few old chateaux. This one had been built for some prince in the eighteenth century, and the recording informed us that it was still in “private hands.” We were left wondering who could afford to keep this as summer house.
After the train trip was finished, we walked around the area near the ferry stop. It is the largest of the Bellagio communities, and clearly the municipal and commercial center. There are a few extremely expensive hotels in this area and a couple, like the one shown below, that are clearly more affordable choices.
We stopped in a bar and had some coffee. One of the weird things for Americans in Italy is that a “bar" is mostly a coffee shop. You can probably buy some alcohol in most of them, but their main purpose is selling espresso and pastries in the morning. It is possible to get table service at most, but Italians prefer to just stand at the bar and gulp it down. We did as the Italians do.
We also stopped in a church to look around. It was mostly a hodgepodge of unfortunate nineteenth century “restorations,” but somehow they had preserve this obviously ancient pulpit.
After Bellagio, we headed to the other side of the lake to Villa Carlotta. This is another enormous chateau that originally dates from sometime in the seventeenth century. But the house was renovated and decorated at the height of the Napoleonic era. The interior is filled with third-rate art from that period.
Some of this seemed to inspir John to do his own posing.
Mostly Villa Carlotta is famous for its gardens. But much of the planting looked pretty familiar to those of us from Southern California.
The garden is an interesting mixture of mostly English-style naturalistic gardens and some more formal French gardens.
Our group posed for a picture together right by the entrance.
John and I wandered about the Villa a bit more after the others left. Some of that time was spent locating where he had lost his wallet, but as Shakespeare noted, “All’s well that ends well.” We bought two lovely watercolors by Marina Fusari, a very talented local artist. We met up later with Sherry and Giles for a bite of lunch.
After that, Sherry wanted us to go to see Villa d’Este. This is one of the most exclusive hotels in the world. She thought it was about 45 minutes further down the lake. It turned out that it was nearly two and a half hours further! But what a magnificent ride along the way.
When we finally arrived, we really had no time at all to check it out. Sherry had made friends with a couple who were staying there, and most of our group went in briefly and looked around. But we had to get to Como, the only real city on the lake, to catch the fast ferry back to Varenna.
As we pulled in, Jill had a bit of a Titanic moment.
And as we all filed off, we had memories of an utterly beautiful day in one of the most gorgeous place on earth.
