15-Jun-2018:: Exploring Lake Como & surrounds

The morning was spent mostly in Bellagio – it is such a lovely spot with a real magic about it. It certainly has a personality all of its own, quite distinct from other lake side towns.
We spent the first part of the day looking further around the village of Bellagio, browsing the shops, taking in the sights, observing the locals as they went about their business and having the usual capuchino.

After lunch we ventured across Lake Como, to a place called Villa Carlotta which is a huge mansion and garden complex, right on the shore line. The villa is now a museum housing many fine works of art (and some not so). It was first built in 1690 by wealthy silk merchants who were prominent in this area. The villa also has an amazing garden which you could say would take a ‘team’ of gardeners to maintain it. There is so much to see, that the recommended tour takes 75 minutes to complete. The day was very warm so we opted to take the shorter garden tour, which still gave us an excellent picture of the who complex.

We completed our short but informative tour of the villa at approximately 3:30pm..We hadn’t really seen Menaggio yesterday so we thought we could catch a bus into the town, as we were heading along the same side of the lake
When we eventually found the bus stop, the time table indicated that the next bus was more than an hour away, so we opted to start walking, after all, it was only 4kms away, according to Google Maps.
It was an uncomfortable walk, as it was predominantly in full sun, and for long stretches there was no footpath, so you shared the busy road with other traffic. Eventually we reached Menaggio town, again a place with its own unique character and personality, different to Bellagio. Ariving quite hot and bothered, we sat at a bar and enjoyed a long cool beer and spritz. After a further look around at churches, restaurants and knick knack shops, we took the ferry back to Bellagio for dinner – this touring business is certainly tough work hmmmmm..