Bellagio is Bellisimo

by David McGuffin | Nov 28, 2008 | Destinations

We woke up this morning to crystal clear skies, snow-covered streets, and temps hovering around four degrees F.  After breakfast at the Hotel Hauser, we headed back toward Italy.  The drive back to Varenna was beautiful and took up about two hours.

Arriving at the ferry dock in Varenna we waited thirty minutes for the car ferry.  The “cruise” across the lake afforded us with wide sweeping vistas of the surrounding mountains.  Charlotte and I have fallen in love with this area!

Arriving at the ferry dock in Bellagio we were met by a kind gentleman who pointed us in the direction of our hotel.  So up the hill we went.  Having learned my lesson about driving on small streets in small towns (see “Too Much Room for the Road”) I parked before we entered the town gates and we walked in to explore.  Bellagio reminds me of many hill towns of Tuscany… narrow cobbled streets lined with shops, steep alleyways, and a quaint ambiance.  It was a bit weird visiting here in the “off-season” because many of the shops were closed and the town was deserted except for a few hearty tourists like us and the locals.  

We found a nice room at the Hotel Bellagio and I went back to collect our luggage from the car and to find a suitable place to park.  Our hotel room had a huge window with sweeping views of the lake and mountains beyond.  We were able to lower the window to waist level which transformed our entire room into a balcony over looking the town and lake.  A little prosecco and fruit just seemed to enhance the vista.

I don’t know what Bellagio is like in the summer, I hear it is a popular place and often crowded, but the town is delightful for Charlotte and me right now.  Bellagio is definitely a relaxing destination with no museums or tourist attractions in sight.  It’s worth a visit and is definitely Bellisimo!

Ciao, David

So, we ended up in Switzerland

by David McGuffin | Nov 27, 2008 | Destinations

We woke up in Varenna this morning to cloudy skies and sputtering snow.  I had a terrible night of mostly sleeplessness.  I am sure it is due to the extended nap yesterday afternoon and further complicated by the firm bed on which we tried to sleep!  So after breakfast, we packed our bags and drove north along the lake. 

I spent sometime last night learning how to use my new Garmin GPS.  I discovered a lot of features such as exploring the map, adding way points, traffic information, speed limit and traffic camera notification, and even switching the language.  With this new knowledge we struck off in the direction of St. Moritz, a famous resort in the Swiss Alps.  Driving along Lake Como I switched the GPS to “speak” in Italian which sounded a whole lot better than the “American English” voice trying to pronounce Italian street and city names.  In a short while, we were at the Swiss border and really making headway uphill.  Although it was not snowing much it was apparent that there had been a lot of snow in the past few days.  The roads were clear, but at times there were snow banks reaching eight feet or more. 

We arrived in St. Moritz by one o’clock and found the town closed for “siesta” which I guess they adopted from the Italians.  Situated on the banks of Lej da San Murezzan,  St. Moritz is a beautiful Hapsburg-esque town.  I am traveling here without any historical knowledge of the town, but I can guess it has been a resort of centuries.  Uhmm…it is also expensive, but we decided to stay a night just to get a feel for the place.  We are here between seasons.  Fall is over and the winter ski season does not begin for a couple of more weeks.  All around town folks are decorating for Christmas and the town looks so festive decked out in snow and twinkling lights.

We are picnicking in our room tonight to offset the hotel cost.  We visited the local COOP for bread, ham, cheese, coke light, water, Beaujolais Nouveau, and sweet.  Now we’re holed-up in our toasty room with frigid 20 degree F temps outside. 

-David

A View of Varenna

by David McGuffin | Nov 26, 2008 | Destinations

I know you will find this hard to believe, but we slept away the afternoon. By the time I woke it was almost dark, the street lights were on, and the church bells were tolling seven o’clock.  I went out for a stroll looking for a spot for dinner.  Between the town center and the ferry dock I came across four restaurants, two of which were eliminated because they were pizzarias.  I took my time wandering back to the room, checking out the nooks and crannies of Varenna.  Here’s my take:  This is an old town, I’ll have to look up the history later, but I can tell from the architecture it dates back to the Middle Ages.  All the streets are cobbled and narrow.  Streets,Ha! There are only two main streets for vehicles, everything else is pedestrian only.  The pedestrian lanes seem to spoke off the main square and lead down to the water’s edge.  Unusual cobbling here since the lanes slope steeply down to the lake so they must serve double duty as gutters during heavy rains.  The stones are small and golf ball sized cemented in between horizontal stone terracing every ten meters or so.  (I discovered later that the stone came from the bottom of the lake where there are billions of smooth round stones). The lanes are steep going down, steeper going up, and are tough on the soles of your feet.  The main square holds the church, town hall, pharmacy, several restaurants, and shops.  There is a small amount of parking on the square so it seems everyone just pulls in somewhere and makes a parking place.  All in all, Varenna is a lovely little town but it’s not much for sightseeing, shopping, or museum hopping.  This is a place to rest, relax, and slow down (evident in my taking a nap this afternoon). 

I found Vecchia Varenna Ristorante located down at lake level and about halfway towards the ferry dock.  It was a small restaurant with about eight tables.  In the busy season I can imagine one would need to make a reservation in advance for dining, but tonight there were only two other couples.  The region’s cuisine caters to the local freshwater catches from the lake so you can imagine there are lot of fish on the menu.  We ordered a bottle of Barbara d’ Asti along with a pumpkin and pancetta laced bowl of risotto.  The risotto was freshly prepared and wonderfully creamy and paired very well with the vino.  For the second course, I ordered fresh white fish in a soup of tomatoes and herbs.  Charlotte ordered the pork filet and seasonal vegetables.  Both meals were great.  My fish was exceptionally good with a strong tomato and herb base lightly flavoring the very tasty fish.

Desert, a hike up the hill, and bed.  Varenna is a good place to relax, recover and enjoy the views.

I snuck off to Italy

by David McGuffin | Nov 26, 2008 | Destinations

Charlotte and I hopped on a Delta jet bound for Milano yesterday.  Today, we are enjoying the village of Varenna located on the east bank of Lake Como.  The entire idea of this trip began simply enough… find the cheapest airfare to anywhere in Europe and return to Atlanta in time for Thanksgiving dinner with our family.  Why go?  Because I got the travel bug,  I had some free air miles I needed to use, and Charlotte needed a few miles to bump up her frequently flyer status.     

So here we are driving along the picturesque route along the lake, dodging what seems like hundreds of spandex clad bicyclist out for a Sunday afternoon ride.  The weather is beautiful, clear blue sky dotted with white billowy clouds, bright sunshine, and a temperature about 40 degrees F.  I’m trying out a brand new Garmin GPS unit I purchased online from www.tigergps.com and only had a chance to test it out en-route from my home to the airport.  So now I am really running it through the hoops here in Italy.  So far, it got us out of the Malpensa airport parking lot and on our way to Lake Como.  I’ll let you know more on this new GPS in the coming days.

We arrived in Varenna by 12:00 noon, quickly found a parking spot on the main square, Piazza San Georgio, and began our hunt for a hotel.  We were quickly sidetracked by a sign advertising pizza and fresh regional specialties.  We were the first customers of the day, but by the look of the town we might as well have been the only customers!  Varenna seemed closed for the season.  Driving into town we noticed no tourists, many “closed” signs, and not a single shop open for business… however it was a Sunday afternoon which traditionally means closed businesses in small-town Italy.  The Hotel and Restaurant del Sole appeared to be run by a husband and wife team with two small boys who had really good lungs.  The pizza and vino hit the spot, and during the course of our lunch several other couples arrived and ordered lunch.

Sated, we now set off to find a hotel.  As I  mentioned before, many of the hotels were closed for the season but we did manage to walk along the lakeside, orienting ourselves to the locale, and wind up back in the town square.  We did check out a couple of hotels but finally ended up back at Albergo del Sole, where we had lunch.  We got a nice room with a view of the town square and a bit of the lake beyond.  By now it was after two o’clock and the jet lag was beginning to catch up with us.  Stretching out on the bed we both drifted off to sleep…