Beautiful Bellagio

Friday 6 July 2012  - Back on our lake.

Day 84 and 75 to go

Last night Roberta offered to take us in to Lecco this morning as she works in the city centre that we gladly accepted, however the morning came too early and I was just wanting to stay in bed. Paul dragged me out at 7.15am. I managed to get myself ready just as Roberta pulled in at 8am.

The morning was quite dark and cloudy and we wondered how we would fair with the weather. Roberta parked in he centre and then we walked to a small café for breakfast, brioche and hot chocolate. She pointed out the train station and the lake before heading off to work.

With our breakfast finished we walked to the ferry terminal to check the timetable for boats to Bellagio. With an hour to spare we wandered around the centre of Lecco checking the sites. We located the train station and then retuned to the ferry for 9.50am where we bought our ticket and hopped on the ferry.

The journey was to take an hour and a half as the ferry stopped at different ports on either side of Lake Como. The journey was a pleasant one with plenty of spectacular scenery to be in awe of along with buildings that were beautifully coloured or perched in precarious places up the mountains.

At 11.30am we reached the port of Bellagio and disembarked. It was so great to be back here again. We walked the cobbled streets stopping at different shops along the way. We were looking for a wine bar we had visited before that sold wine in bottles that had been hand painted. We eventually had to ask someone to point us in the right direction.

We sat and had a glass of wine and enjoyed a plate of nibbles before deciding to stop for the lunch special. While we ate the rain came down scattering the tourists. We finished our lunch and then continued our wander through the town, buying a brolly as the rain was still with us. We checked the boat time and with 3 hours to kill we decided we would walk to where we had stayed before in Lopia, this time walking through the Gardens of Villa Melzi that we didn’t get to do last time as it was closed for winter.

The grounds were beautiful with lots of colour and interesting plants.

The walk to Lopia was much quicker through the garden that over the steep street we had to walk before. We found the villa we had stayed in before and decided we would have a drink at the small restaurant at the bottom of the alley. It was wonderful to be back.

An American man was wandering around and he stopped to have a chat. 20 min later we had directions to a mountain restaurant, bikes to hire in Cape Cod and whale watching in San Diego. It was very amusing.

We wandered back through the garden towards Bellagio. Unfortunately the rain came in again and we had to hide under our umbrella and large trees.

We made it back and decided to stop for a drink while waiting for the ferry to return. I had a Bellagio cocktail that wasn’t the best.

At 4.30 we returned to the ferry terminal and waited for the ferry to arrive. We sat inside the boat on our return as it still looked like it would rain and it did, but only brief, light showers.

We watched the landscape disappear. There were plenty of windsurfers and kite surfers out on the lake enjoying the wind. We pulled into Lecco at 6.00pm and made our way to the train station. Unfortunately we had missed the 6.10 train and with the next one not arriving until 7.10pm, we rang Roberta and organised to go back to Ello with her when she finished work at 7pm.

We made our way to the shopping area above the parking and had a drink and checked out the shops while we waited for Roberta who arrived shortly afterwards.

We returned to Ello where we met Ezio and Luigia. Roberta left as she was going to an open-air disco on the lake for a hens party.  Meanwhile, we got changed and then joined Ezio and Luigia inside ready to go out. Unfortunately it began to rain very hard to se waited for a break before heading for the car.

We drove to Mundello, home of Moto Guzzi, to a trattoria on the lake. Unfortunately the view was spoiled by the crap weather. Ezio ordered the fish from the lake for us to try. It came whole and smelt fishy. It was cooked with plenty of salt too. I had one but wouldn’t have it again as it was too fiddly and not that great tasting. The pizza I ordered was much nicer.

Following dinner we drove to a gelataria for icecream, Ezio’s favourite dessert. The place had 75 different icecreams and Ezio has had them all. While we were still full from dinner we made room for dessert in that “Other” stomach. It was yum but I couldn’t eat all of mine.

We then had an adventurous journey home with thunder and lightning and plenty of rain and large puddles to contend with. It was spectacular watching the lightning flash over the lake.

When we returned home at 11.30pm we retired to our van glad our long day was over as we were so tired. 

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