June 15, 2018

Another full on day started with breakfast at our B&B, during which our host kindly suggested some possible itinerary options for our move from Lake Maggiore to Lake Como today. I was all set for a fairly smooth day’s journey of about 120kms on the northern Italian motorways, but Massimo had other ideas.

He suggested that we might like to take the more scenic route and go north along the western flank of Lake Maggiore to a certain point, then take a ferry boat across the lake to a place called Laveno on the eastern flank of the lake. From there we could go visit the monastery of Santa Caterina del Sasso (St. Catherine of the Stone) which has some stunning architecture and lake views, then continue onto Como.

This all sounded like a great idea, and I’m nearly always up for a challenge, even driving on narrow, rough, congested, windy roads around the lakes.
Driving so far has definitely been an experience, not so much because of the left hand drive, right hand drive stuff, although that presents challenges in itself, but the real test is the narrow windy roads with traffic coming up against you.

So we accepted his suggestion and happily took off, ready for anything (almost).

We made it to the town where we were supposed to catch the ferry, but had no idea where to catch it from. A few interrogations of locals later and some challenges for Cynthia (our GPS lady) we eventually found our way there. The ferry boat journey only took 25 or 30 minutes but afforded some stunning views to as far as the Swiss border and the Swiss Alps.
Once on the other side, we again struggled to find our way to Massimo’s monastery, so again we quizzed some of the locals and challenged Cynthia. Lucky we have a little knowledge of the language – I don’t know how other tourists do it. We again eventually found the way there and parked the car at about 11:30am. By the time we reached the ticket office it was 11:45, and the guy at the ticket office had just shut up shop for lunch; he wasn’t going to reopen until 2pm. We could not afford to wait around till then as there was still quite a way ahead to go, so we decided to forgo the visit unfortunately and press on.

We then headed for Como and the lake area itself – not a simple drive by any measure, as it entailed more rough windy narrow roads along with all sorts of motor ways, highways, toll roads with a variety of toll collection systems. Anyway, we reached Como city – it’s funny how you have this idea in your head and even funnier how wrong it can be. We always thought of Como as this rustic, quiet, tranquil little village nestled just above the lake, with very little in the way of people, traffic, business and general hustle and bustle; boy how wrong can you get it; the opposite is closer to the mark.

We moved on past Como and towards our stay in Bellagio, but first had another casalinga lunch (home style cooked lunch) in a small restaurant in Tremezzino, had a quick drive through the village of Menaggio and then took another ferry boat across lake Como to our accom in Bellagio. At this point, I must profusely and sincerely thank Cynthia our friendly GPS lady for getting us here. There is no way on earth that we could have made it with just a map – scouts honour.

The view from our hotel is nothing short of sensational. When we first saw it, we both had a WOW moment. Both of us were a little bit weary from the journey, and the view from our room was so breathtaking that we both decided to hang around the hotel for the rest of the afternoon.

We took the free shuttle bus from our hotel (Borgo Le Terrazze) down into Bellagio town just to have quick look around, and also have some dinner. It was a stunning balmy evening, so we had dinner by the lake’s edge and watched the sun slowly set over the surrounding mountains.