Lake Como

I've had this entry's photos stored for a couple months, but every time I get ready to write the text I don't have my journal or guidebook to fill in the details! Now that Zach and I are actually considering going to Lake Como/Florence again for our *honeymoon*... I wanted to revisit! Hope you'll enjoy!

After saying goodbye at Jonathan and David very early at the train station in Milan, Zach and I took the metro to the Central station and boarded a train to Varenna on Lake Como! We arrived at 9:15 AM, giving us plenty of time to spend on the lake. It was nice and cool outside, which was a really nice change from the heat we'd been traveling through all trip. 
We dropped off our bags at the gorgeous hotel- Villa Cipressi- and walked down to the middle of town for some breakfast beside the lake at a cafe. 
We had a great breakfast on the lake at the Nilus bar: fruit salad, brioches and cappuccinos. We enjoyed watching the ducklings and swans on the shore and the view!

Cute little yorkie at the cafe!

After a leisurely breakfast, we walked along the romantic promenade beside the lake to the end of town and boarded a boat to explore the other cities on the lake. A big contrast from Milan's business atmosphere and the touristy spots, everyone was just relaxed and happy. We headed over to Bellagio across the lake. 

In Bellagio, we walked around the shops, had some coffee and walked through the gardens of the Villa Metzi Gardens. Apparently it was assembled by the vice-president of Napoleon's Italian Republic in the 1800s. The following photos are from the gardens, where we spent a few hours exploring.

We sat at this Gazebo for a while, just enjoying the view.

gorgeous flowers!!

Of course, Zach made friends with the Italian squirrels.

After spending a while in the gardens, we boarded the boat and cruised around to look at the other towns along Lake Como. We realized we were exhausted, so we just stayed on the boat and enjoyed the breeze. :-)

We went back to the hotel and tried to take a nap, but discovered that our beautiful villa had no air conditioning. And it was now very hot. Opening the window opened it up to the busy street below with people across the street calling to each other out their windows and cars driving by. 

Later that evening, we went back out on the town for dinner. We ended up at the same place as breakfast! I had fragiolo rosso- strawberry wine and sangria. we shared cold ham with cheese from the region. It was so delicious! I also had fettucine crepes that were kind of weird.  Zach had salmon crepes.  We shared tirimisu. Sidenote-- i'm so glad I wrote all this down in my journal cause there's no way I would have remembered all the meals we had! :-) 

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and took care of some stuff on the internet and connected with my friend Stephanie Lee who we were staying with at our next destination: LONDON. Sleeping in that room was a bit tough, but zach got us a fan. My main memory from that hotel is how hot it was, even though it was beautiful. :-(

July 31 we woke up at 6am, packed our bags and got breakfast at our villa. It was THE best breakfast we had on this trip--and it was included. Check out the view we had!

We took the train back to Milan's central station and took a taxi to Livate Airport. We got there 2 1/2 hours early, and that was a good thing because that airport was so disorganized! Looking back, I think this is a trend with Italian airports. Just a bit different! Here's the view of the mountains beside Lake Como.

Next post about our trip, I'll talk about London and possibly Bath--and then we headed home! Hard to believe it's been almost a year since we went there!