Lake Como, Italy

Few random Milan extras... Courtney is starting to like soccer...orrrr at least the half naked men playing it in the park in Milan. Baby steps. Also, as we are running all over around the train station looking for a supermarket to pay 50 cents for a diet coke instead of 250 (coke light actually, if you say diet you get coke zero) I say "at least I feel more safe, there are a lot of cars and people"...not 2 seconds later we pass a BMW with a window busted that's been broken into. And finally, continuing looking for cheaper soda in the train station since after 45 minutes we found nothing, we see a burger king. At this point I get excited that they HAVE to have fountain drinks and they HAVE to serve ice (because here that is rare...it's like they don't know what ice is). Anyways we walk in, come to find out they do have fountain drinks....but a small is 2 euro... But oh, for only 1 euro we can get a cup of beer! Seriously, people... I just want a cheap soda. So now I'm sitting here, soda-less and sad... And start the real blog:


After our not so amazing visit to Milan, getting on the train to Como was very exciting. We have read a lot about it, and it definitely lives up to expectation. Imagine very green mountains, with mountains behind those mountains, but somewhere in the middle it looks as though it rained a lot one day and the valley between all the peaks filled with water, forming Lake Como. As we took the bus from Como to Menaggio, where we staid, you look down over the side expecting it to keep going off a cliff as if you were driving on a mountain side, but a few hundred yards down it's all water. As the guide book said, it's "a treasure which the earth keeps to itself." 

We didn't have time to explore Como too much, they have one duomo we saw at a distance and apparently are big silk producers (to ship to Paris, Milan and New York for the high end clothes). One other interesting fact, they have the Tempio Voltiano on the water front that is a dedication to Alessandro Volta, an electrical pioneer to whom the volt is named for. Also...part of Oceans 12 was shot here, we are curious if that's when George Clooney fell in love with the lake or if it was his idea...we need to re watch that movie, good thing I own the series. I do believe on the bus ride back to Como we past his house from above...it looked exactly like the house I google stalked. 

When we arrived the hostel was close (2 to 5 each day so the workers can have their free time), so like little kids we tossed our swim suits on right there and walks down to the private "beach" with determination to go for a swim...unfortunately we had overcast weather while we were here and it was sprinkling and the water was pretty cold... So we gave up and went to explore the little town. 

Basically the lake is, like I said, all of these glorious mountains with this lake just kind of built in as part of it, and then every few miles you have these tiny little towns, all with their center church and bell tower, boat dock, post office, pharmacy, main hotel, and then all the cute little shops and beautiful homes and apartments sprinkled in. Oh, and every one seems to have a little soccer field on cement about the size of a basketball court with nets up high to keep the balls in and two small goals on either end....it just makes my heart happy to see. Anyways, back to town... We found a cute little art gallery, a nice gelataria (and discovered the strawberry cheesecake gelato here that Courtney declares number 1 gelato so far) and a mini wal mart style store. A few groceries and then a little bit of everything else...I was happy to find my shampoo since my travel one is about empty. 

Everything about our night here was without compare my favorite night at a hostel. It's what you imagine in a hostel.. They have a great cook and kitchen and have dinner specials thar you get a free glass of wine if you order. So we did, and they also have vats of wine at the lowest prices I've seen. So everyone just hangs around, there's ping pong outside, beautiful views, lots of laughing and meeting new friends. We had a great dinner and then our table all sat around for hours just sipping wine and all sharing stories (it's a SMALL world I've come to find out while traveling around). 

To start, court, Laura and I are all just sitting around enjoying our free glass of wine, and james and Jamie from Australia join (Laura is Australian by the way...she even told us how to tell apart an Aussie from a New Zealander....ask them to say "hit the egg with a spatula"). So we are all chatting, going over all the funny words we use that have different (and sometimes crude) meanings. Then we meet Joey. He's pretty cool, he is from nappa valley in northern California, and over the night Laura and him find out they both worked at the exact same ski lodge in Tahoe, and have mutual friends, and know all the same stories and places...it was quite random. Even more crazy, the Aussie boys are playing us some of their music and one band really reminds me of Flipsyde, a band I really enjoy. I say this, and Joey is like "flipsyde? The band that sings someday? I'm friends with and went to high school with the girl in the band" .... At this point I'm at a slight loss of words. Anyways, then a chill girl fro, Berkley joins, and I know she is from California when I hear her say "hella"... We all start jamming out, definitely sang spice girls and reminisced on our middle school days for a bit. It was really just a laid back, meet cool people kind of evening.

So our full day there was just that, full...as in my belly. The night before we got the special which was chicken and not pizza (from there stone oven...amazingly good pizza). So I wanted some but we had to leave to go hop the ferry to a few towns before we left. So, I ask if I can get a pizza for breakfast. And, after a laugh from the staff, I get served the first ever pizza for breakfast at the melaggio youth hostel. It was amazing, and dripping grease, and I enjoyed every second (even the food coma/baby after). Then we met up with Joey and us three girls, Joey and 2 other American guys that heard us talking about the day and joined all set off to the ferry. We got a day pass and headed to Varenna first. 

This is where is got fun. Courtney used the pamphlet we got at the visitors center and became our tour guide. From the boat dock we went right and walked on "lovers lane" (don't worry, we held hands). From there we learned of the castle on top of the mountain there and some of the beautiful villas the town is home to. After exploringmthe town center and rest of the town (and getting one of my best photographs, by accident, so far), we grabbed the next ferry to Bellagio. Bellagio is known as the pearl of the lake. It sits right where the two arms of the lake come together to form the rest (the lake kind of looks like an upside-down Y, so it's right where the 3 arms meet. As we started wandering around, the rain got a little harder so we ducked into a cute little restaurant for a quick lunch while the light storm past. We then did some more exploring, and unfortunately decided we would need to head back to Menaggio to catch the bus to Como, to catch the train to Milan to catch our night train to Paris. So the other 4 continued onto Lenno, ho e of the famous Villa Balbianello and we headed back. After one last gelato (strawberry cheesecake) we were on our way and saying goodbye to Lake Como.

The thing about this place is the peacefulness, the slow paced, do what you want, low number of tourist...just enjoy the beauty and culture atmosphere. There are no tourist traps, or men trying to force flowers or bracelets on you. I will definitely be back..I could easily spend a week here. You can explore the little towns, rent bikes, kayak, sail, hike, relax, shop...it's really what I would consider a perfect vacation spot. 

By the way, I'm still thirsty, drink-less and now our train is delayed 70 minutes...so we will be sitting here till 1 am. Milan hates us....make that 75 minutes..80...85...ohh now it's a 2 hour delay. 

Update from the train. We are currently almost to Paris, and the small world story got so good last night I have to share now. So as we are sitting there at midnight, tired and thirsty with nothing open, a younger guy across asks where we are from (apparently he heard us speak English). As soon as we say Alabama he says "no way, us too." well, we talk for a minute and he starts telling us about Paris, and his girlfriend returns and we keep talking, they are apparently from Mobile. So she asks about school and we say Auburn, and then she says "oh I'm starting there in the fall, war eagle" ...a few more exchanges later we figure out she is starting her P1 year in the fall! She will be in Mobile, but we talked for a good hour about school and everything, exchanged travel info and personal information if she needs a place to stay for orientation or has any questions. Then our train arrived at 115am and here we are now...45 minutes from PARIS.