Day 7 - Varenna Revisited

The storm seems to have blown itself out and whilst we're not back to glorious blue skies at least it's not lashing down with rain.  So the plan for today having "done" Lake Como as much as we wanted to, was to go back over to Varenna and have lunch at the same restaurant we enjoyed on Day 2.

This is the little stream we walk past every day which now, thanks to the rain over the last couple of days, is a gushing torrent.

The next boat due was via San Giovanni and Bellagio and as you can see it wasn't exactly popular.

A lot of these photos will be similar (or occasionally identical) to ones taken on Day 2 although the lighting/weather may give a different feel.

These grassed steps don't look real, it looks like fabric laid down.

 

A private water taxi, probably collecting guests for Tremezzo's Grand Hotel just across the water.

Approaching Varenna and again the shots will be similar to previous ones.

Yup, I've definitely taken this boat before, albeit from a slightly different angle.

It was far less crowded today so we could look at the buildings as we passed by without bumping into other people.  A couple of items for sale in the tourist shops, which much to Ian's evident relief I didn't even suggest we went into.

We headed up to the square by the church and discussed which restaurant we'd been to before and of course Ian was correct.  This time we sat inside in a lovely conservatory.  

Ian with the now obligatory breadstick shot.

I asked if I could have prawns added to my pizza which they were happy to do, but although delicious and very tasty I think they may have been frozen as the pizza was much soggier that last time.  Still very nice and Ian enjoyed his pasta too and then helped out by finishing my meal.  Whether or not the staff remembered us I don't know, but we were offered a complimentary Limoncello liqueur (Ian accepted, I didn't) and they didn't charge me for the added prawns.

We then wandered around for a while, first stop the church - I loved the yellow umbrella.

The traghetto (car ferry) approaching.

We sailed past Pino's River Fuimelatte which was absolutely gushing down, I should think the sound was deafening.  Its nickname is apparently milk river and you can see why.

Judging by the view down lake, we're in for another downpour soon.

The ferry stopped again at Bellagio on the way home but we decided we'd had enough and besides which we had to pack for an early start tomorrow.

Hotel Splendide - well named.

Packing didn't take very long and we finished up the remaining food, cleaned the apartment and tried to get an early night.  We left at 0830 the following morning and had a very good run to the airport despite me taking a wrong turning at one point.  We'd realised after a few days that the car was a hybrid and although we'd only used about 1/4 tank we needed to top up so looked for a garage near the airport.  We eventually found one and when a little old lady told me to pull forward further from the pump we realised she was the attendant.  It was probably the most expensive petrol in the whole of Lombardy as it cost £30 to fill up, but we didn't mind and to be honest we could have managed without a car and just used train and ferry or boat.  Interestingly the rain which we'd had the last couple of days had fallen as snow on the surrounding mountains but I couldn't persuade Ian to try and take a photo on this phone, I think he was too worried about losing the directions!

Then came the fun of finding where to drop off the car as the Avis instructions just said airport!  I put "hire car drop off" into Google but it got confused and directed us to the set down point for departures where there were dire warnings of parking charges all over the place.  So we quickly drove round again and luckily this time I spotted and overhead sign and successfully crossed over 3 lanes of traffic to take the correct lane.  There was someone to check the car and sign it off - always a relief.  We were a little early for check-in and probably a dozen of so people already queuing but it was less than clear which, if either, was the priority lane and the chap in front (Liverpudlian) was getting most anxious that someone might beat him to the front.  After what seemed like an age we got checked in OK, collected our boarding passes, cleared security and headed for the lounge.  Unfortunately it was more a café than a lounge with pre-packed, rather heavy sandwiches and other cold savouries - still it was food.

We've had a pleasant week here and enjoyed being away from home but sadly we both feel we were here for too long and that 4 days would have been ideal.  Lake Como is beautiful but there isn't much to see/do behind the façades, especially with weather like we had.