Nancy's Travels

Today is Lake Como day! I'm so excited! This is the place that initially inspired this trip. It took 2 hours for us (God bless Chris) to drive from Orta to Bellagio, located at the center of Lake Como. The narrow cliff-hugging roads demanded a committed driver, willing to navigate around bikers, runners, oncoming traffic with no lane separation, and little old italian ladies pulling shopping bags on wheels behind them. Once at Bellagio, we realized shortly that this was the grander Italian version of Sausalito. The main streets were lined with tourists swinging shopping bags and sucking on gelatos. Determined not to be one of them, we sought out the tourist info center and bought ferry tickets on the spot to a villa across the lake. Given some time to kill, I suckered up and bought myself a new scarf from a nice lady who should really give up smoking. After munching on a panini of fresh tomatoes, ham, and cheese, we hopped on our ferry ride and headed to Lenno. Lenno is a place I would visit again - it is a small, quiet, almost sleepy town meant for get-away summer vacations. And the chocolate gelato nearly gave me an orgasm, but somehow I managed to hold it together and catch our little boat ride to Villa Balbierenello.

This villa, which was originally built by a cardinal from an affluent family, did not disappoint. The view was completely astounding - it was exactly what I thought Lake Como was about. Mountain ranges rising out of blue lake water, offsetting the greenery of the immaculately kept grounds, and colorful flowers potted and strategically placed so there is always a splash of red when looking out at the water. Beautiful architecture integrates with landscaping, and sculptures adorn the building structures, lovingly restored over the last several years. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll spare you the inadequate vocabulary to describe this place, and share the pics when they're available for posting. But this is why we wanted to come to Lake Como. On the ferry back to Bellagio (after another chocolate gelato), Chris and I decided that Lake Como is like combining the majesty and beauty of Yosemite and Lake Tahoe all in one place. It was truly worth visiting.

Back in Orta, we wandered into Jazz Cafe - totally magical little place tucked in a small alley doorway. Acoustics were great for the lovely slow jazz music designed to romance us in the candlelit atrium. A couple glasses of wine, bruschetta, lasagna, eggplant parmeggiano, and machiatto made this the perfect ending for our stay in Orta. We meandered back to our hotel on the lake and sighed contently in bed as we anticipated the next day's events: Wine country, and our castle on the hill! Sleep overtook us before we had a chance to get too excited. Buono notte!