Woke early again, 6:00am!! Hotels are a pain in that they have air conditioning and when we checked in here at the Hotel Capolago were given strict instruction not to touch the control. So we didn’t but I woke all stuffed up and Kim with a sore throat. They did say though if we wanted to adjust it to call reception so tonight we have asked that they turn it off and hopefully we will wake feeling better although having been out in the fresh air all day we already do.
Today was another great day. A little bit chilly first thing but after going upstairs for breakfast we headed off to Como and as the day went on the temperature increased. Clear blue skies and about 27 degrees… perfect, who could ask for more, certainly not us. Ruby got us to Como with no problems although it took just over an hour to make the 38 kilometres which included 19 roundabouts. They’re big on roundabouts here and when you get on them it always reminds me of dodgem cars and he who hesitates is lost so on we get and go, go, go. The traffic was really busy also and then add the very narrow, I mean very narrow winding roads and that’s why it took so long. As we entered the top end of Como we weren’t that impressed but as we got closer to the centre and lakeside we soon changed our opinion. Another spectacular place….full of wonderful little laneways, restaurants, little shops, big shops (eg. Armani, Cartier, Gucci, etc). We wandered around for a bit and then spotted a Funicular so thought what better way to get an overall view of the town so up we went. There was another little town up there and as expected the views overlooking Como and the lake were stunning. We then had to go back to the car to top up the parking before having another delicious gelato (no we don’t have them every day but I could) and then we headed off on a boat trip to Bellagio. They had two options: the fast boat and the slow boat, one taking one hour and the other 2 hours so as we were time poor we took the fast one. It stopped at Moltrasio, Argegno, Lenno, Tremezzo & Menaggio before we got off at Bellagio. There are many, many more little towns dotted all over the lake that they stop at and probably some that they don’t but they all look magnificent. The main one’s that I believe tourists stop at are Managgio, Bellagio & Varenna and Bellagio was recommended to us so that was how we made our choice. Great recommendation, we wandered the streets again through all the laneways and back streets before heading back to the boat for the hour long trip again. The camera cannot capture how exquisitely beautiful these places are and nor do my descriptions, they really do have to be seen.
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| View from top overlooking Como |
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| Another town around Lake Como |
We went to purchase our return ticket and stood behind an American man who was wanting to change his ticket from the 5.00pm boat to the earlier 3:30pm. The guy at the ticket office said you want this one pointing to the boat pulling into the dock to which he stood back umming and aahing. Kim then said ‘Well that’s the one we want, if you hurry up’ to which he replied ‘Easy’!! Finally when he left we bought our ticket and as it turned out just sidled into the queue which in reality as we realised later was actually pushing in. No one seemed to say anything but we did get a bit confused when suddenly we noticed that they stopped letting anyone on after the couple behind us boarded. We couldn’t understand why when the boat still seemed quite empty. The funniest thing though was when the boat started to leave the dock, we saw our unhappy American friend who told us ‘easy’, standing on the dock waving his arms about abusing anyone in sight. We were in hysterics. As it turned out the last couple behind us were from New Zealand so we chatted with them for a while on the way back. Also when the boat was getting ready to let some more people off a really old guy came over and turned to Kim and asked where she was from to which she replied Melbourne. He said ‘yeah, but where’ like we’d already had a conversation with him and established that. She said Aspendale to which he replied so was he and reeled off his address saying I’ll see you at the Bridge Hotel some time. We can only guess that at some point he had heard our conversation with the Kiwi’s when we were talking about being from Melbourne.
Got back to Como at about 4:45pm so headed back to the car for the trip home. This took us about an hour and a half this time due to some Ruby issues that sometimes come up. Sometimes she tells us to go straight through a roundabout, sometimes she doesn’t mention them at all and sometimes she tells us the first exit but means the second exit and so on so every now and then she does lead us up the garden path so to speak. I’m not sure if roads have been updated that she’s no aware of or not but tonight was one of those nights. In any case we got home safely but starving as we’d only had the gelato since breakfast so we went straight into town to get some pasta before heading back the hotel for a cuppa. Fabulous day.
We are heading down to San Remo tomorrow before heading to our next week long accommodation in Provence, France. Can’t wait to settle somewhere for a week again, this in and out of hotels can be a pain but if that’s the only problems we’re doing great.
Haven’t mentioned before but there are a lot of beggars over here, always strategically placed where you would be paying for something with a cup in their hand for you to throw some coins their way.
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