Farewell River Countess and Venezia

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After farewells over breakfast yesterday we caught the Vaporetto from the terminal just next to the boat over to the terminal near our hotel, what a great and easy way to travel. As you can tell by now I caught up on the blogs (apologies again to those who didn't just hit delete) then we went exploring and were brave enough to take some of the laneways and not stick to the main streets.

Thought of the day - Don't say “I can't see why everyone says it is easy to get lost in Venice” because, while you may not get lost, you may take four times as long to get somewhere and pass the same landmarks more than once.

It was great to be able to wander at dinner time and we found a great place away from the waterfront that had a garden out the back and we enjoyed a delicious meal of home made pasta - so rich in colour and flavour. Because it was so simple, we needed to have a gelato to complete the meal and wander a bit further enjoying the balmy evening. We agreed it is nice to relax and “do our own thing”

Another vaporetto ride took us to the station and we are now on board the Frecciarossa heading to Milan where we change to a regional train for Lake Como. I tried my Italian (haha!) on the vaporetto to see how many stops before the one for the station. It wasn't that I didn't trust Mike, I just needed a little reassurance. Well I said “Ferrovia?” (the name of the stop) with a suitable shrug of the shoulders and received a “due” reply and then another lady cleared the path for us, as by this time the ferry was packed. My “Grazie Mille” was met with another babble so she obviously ought I was a fluent Italian speaker!! On the ferry a lady recognised the Qantas tags and it turns out lived in the same suburb Mike did as a child so yet another serendipitous moment reminding us it is indeed a small, small world.

We then travelled by Frecciarossa, regional train, water taxi (blank looks helped us work out perhaps vaporetto is only a word used in Venice - so much for my fluent Italian!) and foot to our BnB in Tremezzo overlooking Lake Como - and I mean overlooking. All I can say is everything everyone has said about Lake Como's beauty is true and, on this occasion, I will let the pictures do the talking.

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Photos

Last meal in Venezia - homemade pasta
Yellow pasta - chickens are fed on carrots and corn to give the yolks a very yellow colour