Hey, isn't that George Clooney?!!!

The train has stopped, I hope not for good because we haven't gotten far from the station and we just left Lake Como after a wonderful few days in the "pearl" of the lake, Bellagio. A little town that straddles a promontory overlooking all three arms of Lake Como.

The thing that strikes you when you step off the train in Varenna, just across the lake from Bellagio is the wonderful quality of the air, the freshness, the smell of flowers and the birdsong that is a constant companion for the whole time you are near Lake Como.

But I forgot to mention the train station! After Verona, we hopped the train to Milano the next morning. When you arrive in Milan, it has quite the effect! The Statzione Centrale in Milan is a huge  building, built by Mussolini in 1931 to awe the people and convince them of the need for a strong, (fascist) state.

We had some time to kill so Rose found a comfy spot to wait and read her book and I took my camera with the 8mm fisheye and walked around, it was fun standing amidst the bustle of a very busy station and trying a few different things. Black and white, a slow shutter speed to capture the movement of the people, looking straight up with the fisheye, bending the columns for distorted effects and things like that.

Milan Central Train Station

This was one of the few times that I didn't have an internet train ticket for the next leg of the journey, so we picked up a ticket at the machine and were more than a little confused by it. We spent a little time trying to decipher it, but there was no train #, no track # and no time of the trains departure! I'm sure someone somewhere could decipher it but we sure couldn't. The helper guy was nearby so we got him to figure it out for us and even he had to look it up in a handy little book that he carried with him.

But getting back to Bellagio, that could be our new mantra, every year, back to Bellagio! Lake Como is amazing, beautiful clear water, lovely gardens and villas and tiny picturesque towns every kilometer or two and gorgeous snow capped mountains in the distance, surrounding the lake. And if you like, you can hop a train for a day trip into Switzerland.

When we arrived in Varenna we made our way to the ferry landing and hopped on the first car ferry to Belagio. After a quick 15 minute trip on a nice clear day, (and about 200 images later) we arrived in Belagio. Trying to catch a taxi took a while, they're pretty laid back around here, but we soon managed it and in 5 minutes we were at Hotel Nuovo Miralago, a charming little 12 room, family run hotel on the other side of a promontory that we came to love, (and dread a little, as you have to climb over it to get to town) over the next few days.

Bellagio

You can't hardly take a step around Bellagio without hearing that the bigtime movie star, George Clooney likes to come here and he eats at such and such restaurant, and stays at this or that hotel. Even if you're like me and couldn't care less, you still end up catching a glimpse now and then of someone who just might be that guy, and find yourself thinking, "is that George Clooney?"

Every time we would see a Ferrari drive down through town it was hard not to stare through the windows to see who the fancy pants rich dude was, but later we discovered there was some kind of Ferrari rental outfit in town and any boob could rent one.

Alas, we never spotted anyone famous, but we loved everything about our hotel; from the very sweet lady and her son who run it, to the incredible view from our terrace, to the price of only $100 euros, to the yard/lounge area lit by candles in the evening, to the staff who brought us up a tray with tea and snacks when we arrived and especially, to the breakfast!
By far the best breakfast we've had since we arrived in Italy and probably for months before that.

The heavily laden table covered in home made cakes and pastries and pies, OH MY GOODNESS! Some of the best brioche we've ever tasted, covered with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and filled with jam or chocolate nuttella spread. It was hard to walk away from that table, but we tried our best to find some room for fruit and yogurt as well. I'm sure that everyone thought we were nuts, posing with the pastries, photographing the packaged toast (for contrast) as well as the beautiful table covered with fruit and pastries and other goodies.

Breakfast at the Hotel Nuovo Miralago!

Of course Rose complemented all of the staff and anyone who would listen, but when asked if the pastries were homemade, the lady replied, "oh, not so special, I make them at night."
Not so special! They were special enough that Rose couldn't get over these things and threatened to write a sonnet about them. "A sonnet, I'm not sure I even know what a sonnet is," I said. At that another gentleman who we had chatted with a bit, spoke up to Rose. "Maybe you should start with a haiku!"
So here goes,
"We love their dusted, suggary tops,
their filling and their flake,
our visit to Bellagio, better did they make!"

What did you expect? We're not Japanese and we're not poets, that's the best we can do!

The other highlight of Belagio, in a long list of highlights, was meeting a lovely couple from London at dinner that first night. We did the usual picture exchange, (which we've done a thousand times since) "would you like us to snap a picture of the two of you?" And of course being nice people they would offer back to snap a picture of us together and we started talking up a storm about gardening and anniversaries (our 30th and their 39th) and photography and their home in London. Some people, you just seem to have lots to talk about, and we enjoyed meeting Keith and Christine.

At breakfast the next morning, who should be there but the same couple, they were also staying in the same little hotel and over the course of the next couple of days we bumped into them twice more and enjoyed a lovely evening of pizza and conversation with a spectacular view, just a 5 minute walk from the hotel. Both of us now have a standing invitation to visit, them if they are ever in Canada, and us if we're ever in London.

One of the things that we had read about and also had recommended to us more than once was to take a tour of the Villa Serbelloni grounds.
Our first full day there was sunny so we walked over and signed up with Anna, a very opinionated, transplanted Brit, who met and married an Italian guy while traveling in Africa and thereby wound up in Bellagio, Italy.

Most of the time we walked the tour, (over 5 km) Anna and Rose talked, and talked and talked while I constantly lagged behind, in serious danger of being left behind and stranded in the super secure park, run by the Rockefeller foundation.
Apparently this wealthy American lady named Ella Walker married an Italian prince and loved this property and the town so much she dedicated herself to helping the children and people of the area. When she passed away, she left the property to The Rockefeller foundation but...she had a provision in the bequest that the town would always have access and that is how come we were able to visit the grounds.

View from Villa Serbelloni, looking back at our hotel. (dead center behind the marina)

We also loved walking over to the Villa Melzi, just outside Belagio, with their beautiful grounds sprawled along the lake, including a grotto and pond and all kinds of statues and a lovely little private chapel.

The next day was pouring rain so we got a late start but eventually made our way to town and hopped a ferry with a mid-lake ferry pass. First stop Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo, but even firster, lunch!

Villa Carlotta was really nice, crawling with tour groups and school kids of course, but very nice. It was kind of like a snooty Butchart Gardens (Victoria, Canada) with a bamboo forest and a misty valley that looked straight out of Jurassic Park, we kept expecting little curious dinosaurs to pop up out of the bushes and start gnawing on our legs.

From Villa Carlotta grounds

After checking out the Villa full of extremely ornate ceilings and beautiful art, we made our way to the dock and hopped a ferry to Varenna. We loved Varenna too, with it's beautiful little promenade lined with restaurants and Gellatto stands, ($2 for 2 scoops) and since the streets going up looked very steep, Rose found a shady spot to read and I went exploring. Of course I found my way to the main village piazza with the church, (I can never resist a church in Europe).

We were super sad to leave Bellagio, but for George Clooney, Rose and I, next summer it's "back to Bellagio, right George?"


All contents Copyrighted by the author, Doug Petry

The toast of the town, Venice style.

Well, Venice is now a memory: a very pleasant memory of course, but our visit is behind us and we are now on the train to Verona (I hope).
Just kidding, so far the train experience has been a breeze.

Not like navigating Venice, yikes! If there was a way to wander right off of the island, we would have done it! I can't blame our predicament on Rose either, she dutifully followed me,  innocently trusting in my famously storied sense of direction.

After we trudged past the same group of excited kids being herded into classes for about the third time, I began to hear tired, exasperated sighs emanating from the rear. (Wait a second, that didn't come out right.)

Beautiful colours of exposed. weathered bricks

But eventually we emerged on the far side of the island in a district almost devoid of other tourists and asked at a vaporetto stop where we were. "Oh, of course, right where I expected to be, was my automatic response, but too tired to keep up the pretense, I asked humbly for directions, (and a map!)

Part of the problem I think was that we had ordered our breakfast for 8:30 am and Rose was anticipating some kind of authentic Venetian breakfast feast and didn't want to miss it. Boy, was she wrong!

When we finally made it back at 9:30 breakfast was sitting on our little table looking kind of forlorn and pathetic. Nope, not a feast at all, some prepackaged crackery things and prepackaged croissants and prepackaged everything, even the toast was hard as a rock and had obviously been baked sometime around the time mount Vesuvius got cranky.

The Italians do a lot of things right, but toast is NOT one of them!
Luckily, the cappuccino was still warm and Rose bounced back pretty well. (After her nap)

We've had all kinds of weather since we got to Italy: rain, clouds, sun and more rain. The strange thing is how little it matters what the weather is like and in fact, the rain made for some great photography. Glistening pavement, lots of colourful umbrellas and soft, diffuse lighting to go along with the brief periods of bright sunshine and the stark bright colours that it brings out.

Umbrellas and wet pavement, we saw lots of both!

I've been up and out every morning as early as I can manage, (Rose isn't quite the dawn lover as I first thought) but that's OK.
Saturday we made our way to St. Marks Basilica nice and early to beat the line and Rose took one look and just about mutinied!
Fifteen minutes before opening time there were about 1,000 people waiting in line but we decided to tough it out and actually met a delightful couple from Manchester in the queue.

St. Marks Basilica from the upper gallery.

The line moved pretty quickly as soon as the doors opened and the multitudes were soon swallowed by the massive building. It was quite breathtaking inside with all sorts of famous art work, the glittering gold leaf ceilings and of course the famous bronze horses.

Those horses have quite a story, originally thought to be made in ancient Greece around 400 B.C. and taken to Rome by Nero. Constantine brought them to Constantinople/Istanbul and they were swiped from there by the Venetian crusaders who lost them to Napoleon until he was defeated and eventually they ended up, back at their "rightful home", in Venice.

We loved Murano Island of course with the incredible glass that they make, and Burano with all of the lace and the tiny little canal running through the middle and the colourful houses. This place was amazingly colourful, so colourful in fact, that sunglasses are barely adequate to protect your corneas from overloading, but somehow the overall effect is still pretty. (Rose didn't like the fact that I used the word colourful twice in the last sentence so I used the word colourful again, just to show her that colourful can be a very effective word, even if used twice, or thrice!)

The colourful houses of Burano Island.

Our last night in Venice I realized that I had been a bit lazy and hadn't taken any night shots and had only used my tripod once! So around 10:30 on a drizzly night in Venice I strapped on my gear and headed for Piazza San Marco. I told Rose I would probably only be an hour but it was so gorgeous and so much fun that it took more like two to get what I wanted.

Looking at St. Maria Saluta Church lit up at night

The next day we didn't have to check out until 11:00 so we walked the 5 minutes to the Rialto market and picked up some fruit. Rose had decided early on that she definitely wanted to visit the market so this fulfilled her dream of buying fruit in Venice I guess, go figure.

After we checked out we dragged our bags the few blocks to the vaporetto stop and caught the #1 vaporetto (water bus) to the train station. What a ride, I have never been so packed in like sardines before. I spent the whole time clutching my wallet and trying to stay out of every ones way.

This crazy boat zig-zags back and forth across the grand canal swallowing up and disgorging hordes of people at each stop and it seems like there is no limit to the number of people that it will take on.

At each stop I thought for sure that he was going to leave some behind but  nope, he would just keep shouting "AVANTI, AVANTI" and that seemed to mean "keep moving, go to the back, get out of the way, hurry up," and more. It was a very Venice experience and even though it was unpleasant, I wouldn't have missed it.

A nearly empty vaporetto.

You may be wondering how the bathroom pass worked out? Well it turns out that it is good only for the bathroom that is far away from wherever you happen to be. Every time we tried to use it, it still cost extra euros, so we are not fans of the Venice bathroom pass. The wi-fi pass didn't work out so well either, that was pretty much useless for us, mainly because of our phone problems, but that's another story......

P.S. if you're following on Facebook you'll notice the blog is about 2 days behind the actual events, keeping up with the writing and photography is much tougher than I imagined!

All Contents Copyrighted by the author, Doug Petry