May 9th
Today we went over to a neighboring town called Varenna. It was a beautiful town, but much more traffic and busyness than Bellagio We went walking to explore the town, with an ultimate desired destination of a little beach or swimming. Although I already had stuck my hand into Lake Como, I kinda wanted to actually put my legs and/or body in. Spoiler alert: I would be denied.
I had read about a couple of swimming locations in my Rick Steeves book. We set off in one direction and we walked miles. We saw a great bit of the town, and even a town next door. It was very pretty. Everywhere you walk, I would look to my side, and there would be very serene views of water, mountains ,and snow capped peaks. The book said that Lake Como would lower your heart rate and, I must say it is true. It is very peaceful and serene, and very majestic and pretty.
We walked for a long ways, and took lots of pictures. We also saw a beautiful rushing river/waterfall coming down the side of the hill towards the lake.
We turned around and made our way back. We found the first beach the book had mentioned, a little 10×10 rocky patch. We decided to keep walking for the other one, but not before stopping for lunch.
We stopped at a little pizzeria, and ordered their 10E lunch special of a pizza and a salad and some frizzante water. I was a little disappointed that the pizza wasn’t exactly like I remembered. However, the pizza I ate before, was from southern Italy and perhaps it was just a difference of locale.
Although, my disappointment (too strong a word), was tempered because it was very good and delicious. It was an enjoyable lunch, just outside the main town square, near the picturesque old church where weddings were taking place.
After lunch we made it to the other Lido, which was just a big cement slab where you could rent chairs. Even though it was overcast, we still stripped down to our bathing suits (I thought these were European style) and took in whatever sun we could on our white bodies. Well, white except for our noses which burnt a little in the sun on our 2 hour boat ride yesterday. We ate some gelato and took the ferry back to our town.
We soon travelled back to Bellagio, made our way to our hotel and rested.
We have a great view out our hotel window of a really peaceful lake. Our hotel is about a 10 minute walk up and down steep stairs before you get into Bellagio. We are in a town called Pescallo and it is a nice place away from the center of town, therefore we have a room with a lake view on the back side of the peninsula. It is family run and they are really sweet people.
After a little siesta, we headed back towards Bellagio and found our way to an underground-esque wine bar and appetizer restaurant. We had a glass of wine, some lasagna, and Lisa ate some giant olives.