Lake Como
Buongiorno from Italia! What a change it has been to come to Italy. When we arrived in Como from snowy Switzerland yesterday afternoon it was still cloudy, but noticeably warmer. And today it was gloriously sunny and reached a high of 67! It is like we've been transported into another world, yet we only drove a little more than two hours.
Como and its cathedral from the lake
Even though we knew what to expect, there was initially some culture shock in the change from orderly Germany and Switzerland to chaotic Italy. Navigating the old town of Como to find our hotel was something of an adventure! But of course it is all worth it for the sunshine and famous beauty of Italy, and we are very excited to be here.
We've had such fun in Como. After settling in last night, we visited the family home where David lived for a year, which is only 20 minutes by train from Como. It was very cool for him to see what had changed and what hadn't, and I enjoyed sharing a bit of his past. Back in Como we had good pizza in the restaurant connected to our hotel, the Albergo del Duca.
This morning we visited a Romanesque church here in Como and then went on a boat ride around Lake Como! It was a slow ferry with open-air decks and it stopped at several picturesque villages along the way. The lake is so beautiful, surrounded by mountains on all sides. George Clooney lives along the shore, and we saw his house!
One of the hillside towns along Lake Como
After an hour and 45 minutes of scenery, we got off the boat in the village of Bellagio. We wandered the narrow alleys and steep stone stairways for a couple hours, David had a delicious cappuccino, and we had a tasty late lunch of pasta. The church turned out to be a nice old Romanesque one, too.
Bellagio is said to be one of the prettiest towns on Lake Como and quite popular with tourists. Indeed, on the streets we definitely heard more English and German than Italian. (The German-speakers are suddenly just as "foreign" as we are!) But probably because it's the low season, it still didn't feel very touristy. Souvenir stands were almost nonexistent, the streets were quiet and peaceful, and everything still felt authentically Italian - just with a lot of happy foreign visitors. It was fantastic.
The next two days we'll just be working on making our way south. Tomorrow we'll drive about four hours and stop for the night in Pesaro. Then we'll drive four more hours to Lucera, the first of two bases for exploring Puglia. Both days should be pretty uneventful, so hopefully we'll have time to post a few more photos and memories of Como to the blog tomorrow night or the next night.
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