Thursday morning greetings from Hotel Belvedere on Lake Como.
I promise to backtrack to details about Rome. The newbie travel blogger is learning lots of lessons on this trip, a) don’t wait to blog the details of a day, especially if you’re in Rome, as the next day will match or eclipse the previous day and you’ll be overwhelmed trying to sum it all up b) if you’re going to blog, bring your own “tools” – relying on hotel set-ups to compliment my own devices was a rookie mistake and hence I continue to struggle uploading pictures.
Anyway, we reluctantly left Rome yesterday morning. In 3 short days we fell in love with the city. The Mr wants to go back at Christmas to see what it looks like in another season. In short, we started early and stayed out late, some hours were focused to accommodate must see things like the Vatican and the Coliseum. And many hours were spent wandering down streets and marvelling at things like the Italian women and their effortless high heeled approach to cobblestone, glorious cold water from open fountains everywhere, expresso, not 24 ounces of Wawa coffee in a container with a lid, but a quick hit of expresso in a small cup had while standing at the counter, the fearlessness of the scooter drivers, the depth of history, art, and architecture.
But alas the next adventure was upon us so with a ciao ciao, we jumped on the fast train from Rome to Milan, local though fast train from Milan to Varenna, and lastly a short ferry over to the town of Bellagio on Lake Como. Fairly hilarious sidetrack story upon arrival in Bellagio…we understood the hotel to say that they were within walking distance of the ferry landing. By the time we “walked” the short distance, the Mr had had to pull his rolling bag through a field complete with gnats buzzing around his head and dodge traffic on a windy uphill road – no exaggeration. Instead of arriving with an air of distinction, we arrived sweaty and with “distink”. The hotel felt awful for the miscommunication, the normal route is via a courtesy car that meets you at the ferry blah blah blah. We kept our sense of humor and ended up with a room upgrade. Between us, thinking about the Mr in full stomp through the field makes me laugh to myself even a day later…and the room “upgrade” is glorious – all in, a win win for moi!
So..Lake Como…everything you have seen in pictures or read about, it is quite simply true. I swam laps this morning in the hotel pool overlooking the lake. If I die today, please someone eulogise my last morning on the planet as sublime. Last night the Mr commented, “they must pipe in perfectly chirping birds”. Think the quietness of a lake that is jet ski free, add villas to the coastline outfitted with vegetation that is naturally pink, yellow, green, purple, with flower, throw in a mountain in the distance that still has snow cover, and then gently tuck in our hotel sitting up a bit from the lake looking down over narrow cobbled roads. A graceful and lovely oasis.
Today we are touring a villa so I have to go now and soak up a little serenity before heading out. More later and I will continue to work on the pictures..