Lake Como...finally

So...a few months ago we went to Italy for Easter break...and I never did get to finish uploading all our pictures and the adventures we had. After Verona, we stayed in Lake Como. From almost the first conversation we had about travel here people have been recommending Lake Como. It's beautiful, amazing and relaxing. It is those things. We also went on off season so it wasn't much of what we expected.
We stayed at the Grand Hotel Como di Como, which was a nice hotel, rather dated in style. But the location was good, outside the city itself but near a Ferry stop. Also, a great little Italian family owned restaurant with perfect service and amazing food.
Mainly the only boats on the water were the water ferries. We did get to see some kind of military exercise but not the amount of sailing boats I had imagined. Our first day we took a ferry up around the lake to see some of the other towns.

Some of the views along the way, which were absolutely stunning...

We stopped in Tremezzo to see the gardens at Villa Carlotta, which is a mansion with a beautiful view of the lake and gardens that seem to go on forever.




More views back on the boat...

We then stopped at Bellagio. Bellagio is exactly how I pictured towns on the lake to be, with charming shops that like the staired walkways climb up the side of the mountain the city if located on.

We had lunch at a terraced restaurant with a view of the lake






Departing Bellagio
Our final stop was to go to Verenna to see Castello di Vezio, a castle at the top of the hill (mountain) that supposedly had some birds of prey and other interesting things. We stopped for Gelato before our hike because Alexa and Nick seen from the boat just how far up we had to walk. Alexa decided she needed a "super" sized cone. We knew we were in trouble when she called for a special scooper from the back. We all had to help finish.

up the hill...
a view from the trail


a small town near the top...


We finally made it to the top, near closing time so none of the activities were going on, although I'm not sure they would have been as it did seem to be off season for everyone. We did get to walk through the remains of the towers....



then started our crazy attempt to get back to our original Ferry stop, we ended up going back to Bellagio, then waiting for about fifteen minutes or so to pick up another Ferry, which turned out to be the highspeed Ferry, which costs more but is so super cool...like riding in a plane, on the water. And also, got us back to the Como stop in time to catch the last bus to our stop. So worth the extra money.
Our next day we headed into Como city to walk around. The Duomo in Como



It was much bigger than I had anticipated. The inside was much like the other churches in Europe, large, open although, somehow, airy as light came in from the large Dome at the top. Below was a random facade of a building I found picture-worthy.

In Como there is a funicular, cable car, that takes you up to Brunate.

Where we found Andrea's church...
And there is a lighthouse, which we (Andrea and I) attempted to walk to..but seemed to never appear and we were afraid it would take us an hour or so, and then we had to walk back to where everyone was waiting...so after about a half hour we gave up. We all went back down the funicular and ate at a small restaurant near the lake...Nick found Pizza Rotolo...which we thought was funny because of how close it was to our last name...turned out to be rolled pizza.

We walked back to the hotel from Como, which is about a twenty minute walk...
stopped for some pictures...


Nick and I stopped at one of the Grand Villa's, Villa Olmo, on the way. It reminded me of Newport Mansions. It had a fabulous exhibition on Impressionist artists.
The next day with predictions of rain at the lake we hopped on a train to Milan. It was great to show the city to the whole family, as Alexa and I had been there before. A picture in front of the Duomo.



We tried to get those same amazing cappucino's from Dante's Cafe but the waiter who made them must not work there any longer. We just got regular large size cappucino's when we ordered them. (sigh)


We took the train back and then our last ferry boat to the hotel. The next morning we left for home. For those keeping track we were on just about every mode of transportation invented for this trip... Planes, cars, gondolas, water buses, water taxis, ferry boats, high speed ferry boats, funiculars, trains, and metros...can't think of anything we missed. Hope you all enjoyed the pictures.