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France, Italy and Switzerland, August 2002
Day
13 Christy
left early on Wednesday morning while Emily and I woke up at 8:30 am.
We had cold cheese pizza and raisin twists for breakfast while walking
around in search of a neon green cross, the sign of a pharmacy.
Without much more than a glance, the pharmacist looked at your mom's red
eye and gave her some drops. They did the trick and we spent the
rest of the day exploring the greater Lake Como area. First we went to the Villa Serbelloni, explored the gardens and picked a brochure and price list from the lobby for someone with much more money than we have. Truth be told, it would be nice to stay there but the 'Albergo' is more my style, even if money is not an issue. Next we bought half a chicken and hot sausage that we ate on a boat that eventually got to Menaggio after a few stops at other towns.
In
Mennagio we purchased tickets for a scenic bus ride that we would take
the following day to Lugano, Switzerland and used a fancy pay toilet
that sanitized its self with ultra-violet light. Your mom noted,
and I agreed, that although Menaggio was larger than Bellagio, it had a
central square that gave it a nice atmosphere. But we really only
were there to buy the bus tickets so we caught the boat over to Varenna.
If
we come back to the Lake Como area we will probably stay in Varenna.
It has direct train access from Milan and a less pretentious attitude
than Bellagio but all off the charm and beauty you could ask for. In Varenna we walked south along a lakeside path end eventually began climbing into the hills, our destination, the source of the shortest river in Italy Fiume di Latte. Sure enough, after a very nice walk we came to a point where the water came directly out of the hillside. Following the river downstream for a few minutes we came to the lake, a short river indeed. Heading back north to Varenna, we stuck to the road and marveled at the gardens of the villas along the lake. We had the unexpected pleasure of lunching at one such palace, the Villa Cipressi.
It
was an offer your mom could not pass up, four courses with bottled water
and bottled wine for only 20 euros each, after which, we explored the
villa gardens then caught the boat back to Bellagio. The
meal itself was not that memorable. It was nice that we had a
self-serve veggie bar and then self-serve fruit. What really made
it special was that we were sitting on a terrace, overlooking Como with
Bellagio in the distance. We
spent the remainder of the day walking out to the point, eating more ice
cream, buying supplies for the following day and surfing at an internet
café to find Easyjet fares from Geneva to Orly and also to send mean
emails to my Gerwick coworkers. Mainly
just taunting them with "GREETINGS FROM BELLAGIO!!!"
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