Lake Como

Our strategy while here is to use our place as home base for short trips to all the places in Europe that we want to see.  Last Thursday we went to Lake Como for four days for our first such outing.  Our travel was by regional train to Firenze, high-speed train to Milano, regional to Como, and a bus to the town of Bellagio.  The high-speed train (Frecciarossa--red arrow) is impressive:  the highest speed I saw on the monitor was 297 Km/hr (metric system lesson time:  divide by 8, multiply by 5 to get miles per hour).

Lake Como was carved out by a glacier eons ago in the shape of an upside-down Y, and Bellagio is in the crook of the Y.  Here are a few scenes from around town:

Carmen keeps telling me George Clooney has a place here, and she was very disappointed not to see him on this trip.  The main street is along the lakefront, fronted by old buildings with archways set with cafe tables, plus trendy shops.  What looks like streets going up from the lake on a map are actually "salite", which translates as "climbs", stone stairways, including the one we had to schlepp our luggage up.

A short walk from town took us to a small marina at the point in the crook of the Y.  The point is called Punta Spartivento, "the point that divides the wind."  I tried telling Carmen the translation is "the point that breaks the wind", but she wasn't buying it.

Carmen at Punta Spartivento.  Varenna is in the background.

Here are a few scenes from the rest of our walk:

The next day, we took our first boat trip across the lake and visited Villa Carlotta, built in the 17th century, and now home to an extensive botanical garden.

Bellagio from the lake

Our boat; Villa Carlotta

Two quick remarks about the above:  Always check out the ceiling when you are in a fancy old European building;  we see lizards everywhere we go (especially out our front door).

On Saturday, it was raining buckets and we spent the morning holed up in our room reading.  We were going stir-crazy and after lunch we decided that we would take the ferry to Varenna on the eastern shore, rain or no.  

(left) Believe it or not, this is a color photo.  (right) Varenna from the ferry.

Varenna is a nice little town, lower key than Bellagio but still with cozy cafes and trendy shops along the waterfront walkway.  We ended up visiting another Villa, Monastero.

Villa Monastero's modest bathtub; old lamp fixture refitted with a compact fluorescent

Villa Monastero started as 13th century nunnery (presumably before the bathtub was added) and converted to a villa by an Italian noble in 1569.  The physicist in me was warmly surprised to find that Enrico Fermi taught courses here in 1954, shortly before his death.  Inspired by him, a conference center was set up and the Italian Society of Physics holds courses here annually in honor of Fermi.  Hey, I never got to go to a conference in a place this nice!

Well, this has been a long one, but we hope you enjoyed it.  Fino alla prossima volta.