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Published: September 12th 2010
Lake Como and Lake Lugano
An apology to grammar fanatics. You will have noticed changes from present to past tense a few times, we write this in sections nightly, so we ask for forgiveness from those who care Lake Como
Today we travelled from Desenzano by train via Brescia and Milan to Varenna on Lake Como. The train kept to the lake edge from Lecco up to Varenna- very pretty trip. We spent 90 mins here .Varenna was a lovely village with a tiny cove harbour, very narrow winding laneways up to a piazza and out to two villas up high above lake Como (only their gardens are open) , L escaped to take photos while D looked after the bags and met the locals (ha ha), we made the boat with 5 min to spare. We caught a ferry to Bellagio opposite, which is meant to be the most popular place to visit on the lake, by the crowds there on Sunday we believe it.
At Bellagio D tried desperately to ring the accommodation and after putting a small fortune through the phone gave up and went to the Tourist
office. The lady there rang our hotel who now couldn't pick us up because they had no car, so she offered to drive us instead. What a nice person! Unlike the scowly pouters in the ticket offices of most stations.
Next day we took a trip to Tremezzo on the opposite side of the lake. To see Villa Carlotta. There were lots more lovely villages we could have visited on Lake Como- most have huge villas with beautiful gardens but Villa Carlotta was probably one of the best. We had a nice lunch at the the lakeside at Tremezzo. L's blisters (she now has three!) helped us decide on the 'seen one seen them all' and we all had an afternoon snooze Thank heavens for that.
A story of the athletic museum guard Another chapter in the endless saga of photo taking where it is forbidden. L was provoked by the sign 'no photos' at the Villa Carlotta at Tremezzo, where poor Carlotta died at the tender age of 23 probably after the nth attempt in having a child to husband Georg. He lived till he was 88, the mansion which sits on 7 ha of gardens was 
Entrance to Villa Manastero
Varenna: Villa closed to public, only gardens opena wedding present from her mother
As L entered the mansion a young museum guard (girl about 25 with scars on her face from previous encounters with recalcitrant photo takers) decided that L was of bad character and decided to follow, D had to divert her by asking “dove i servizi” (“where are the toilets”), deliberately mispronouncing each word to act as a delay and give L valuable time. . She continued to follow us, but we escaped upstairs out of her jurisdiction, where a less conscientious guard was pacing, we were able to transmit his position with a series of hand signals.We are thinking of getting a fake camera so that when one taking photos with the fake gets caught, the real villain keeps on snapping. The battle continues. Dan now dreads the ' No Photo' sign.
On our last morning on Lago Como we were greeted by rain. Our host drove us to the bus (at frightening speed on a wet winding road with blind corners). The bus left on time, but halfway at Nesso the temperature needle on the bus went into the red zone. The bus stopped and the driver went out in the
rain to resolve the problem. He was able to get a large bottle of water from a local trattoria and half an hour later we were on our way, some less patient passengers tried to hitch hike, but in vain. We finally got to Como stazione where the bus expired completely stopping diagonally across the road and driver could not start it, all passengers decided this was an appropriate time to abandon bus. Mama Mia!!
We had intended spending the day in Como, but it was 14 euros to store our bags at the station and the weather was foul (torrential rain), so we decided to press onto our next destination at Lugano in Switzerland where we are staying for 3 nights. We had a pleasant morning tea at Como station with a pretty multilingual girl who could speak English, Russian, Italian and Spanish. It turned out that she had lived at Maroubra for 2 yrs in her travels, which included studying in Spain and living in USA with Dad or Italy with Mama.
Lake Lugano
ABL (another bloody lake) we arrived at Lugano (where the rich and famous have holiday shacks). Now in
Little cove at Pescallo
We stayed here just over the hill from Bellagio Switzerland, 2nd most expensive country in the world. Interesting spacious room in an old hotel with 4m ceilings. We found our way down (4236 stairs) to town by the most circuitous route, the streets are often nameless and none are straight. Shops of course include Bvlgari (the bad spellers) and the usual high cost brands. The other day I saw a cheap watch in a window for $A35 ( I had bought an identical one in Vietnam for $4). Small lake with city spread around its shores, Our Internet connection doesn't work here so we had to go to Maccas!! for the free wifi, the bloke near us had obviously been there all day, with no coffee purchased. I don't blame him the cappuccinos were served luke warm. L complained and got one only mildly warmer. Would you believe the toilet had a code to get in, after interrogating a staff member he revealed it under duress, it was 1331 which happens to be one of my favourite numbers. Outside the window were a group of teeny boppers going through the rituals. One boy was smoking and blowing it in an extroverted fashion, another has hat rotated around 38 degrees
Poster showing Bellagio headland
Pescallo tucked in on right hand side so that the brim offered protection only to his right ear., the one girl in the group was doing the appropriate self preening.
The weather on our 2nd day in Lugano has been worse with torrential rain at times, the forecast is for improved weather for tomorrow. We are getting tired of getting wrong directions, I'm sure the locals don't go to any of the tourist attractions. One German woman working in a ticket office when asked where the museum was said ”not here”. Other directions we've been given by people were obviously trying to get rid of us, so we have been on many a wild goose chase.
Arrived home to today with our backpack and shoes thoroughly wet. We had thunderstorms through the night.
Bellinzona
We awoke to a beautiful sunny day so we thought we'd get a train to Bellinzona, half an hour up the line. We got in the train, announcements were heard everyone go off, we gathered that the line was broken somewhere so we had to get a bus. A bus pulled up, 400 passengers surged towards the bus, the driver with fear in eyes refused to open the doors to the riotous
Villa Carlotta on lake Lugano
Nice interiors and gardens for illegal photography crowd, finally some officials appeared who assured us another bus would come. Part of the way on the journey some people wanted to get off and pressed the bell, but the driver was not stopping! There were cries of “fermata” (stop) and “scendere” (get off), there was much gesticulating. I thought we are going see some bus rage in a few minutes. The cries went on, the bus driver was on his phone to headquarters and shouting at the passengers at the same time. Minutes later he pulled into the next railway station we all got off (the rage subsided) and got on a train to our destination.
Bellinzona in the base of a valley has an old town surrounded by 3 castles on a hill and a fortification wall, these dated back to 13th century.
We visited two of them Castelgrande and Montebello (entry was free to both), Montebello was an epic walk up and were were both puffing at the top. The views were spectacularof the valley in both directions. The castles were built by the Dukes of Milan to guard the valley pass to the Alps.
After a look at the old town we decided to return
to Lugano as we had only seen it torrential rain.
At the Lugano we went up a funicular railway 912m to the top of Monte San Salvatore, which has great views over the whole city. On returning down the lake looked pretty impressive on a sunny blue afternoon. L's camera left in a much better mood after a day of castles,great views, blue sky and sun.
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swannie
non-member comment
dan stop eating icecream