Lake Como

No. I did not see George Clooney, nor do I know where his house is. That's the first (and usually only) question that gets asked by Americans about Lake Como. The reason he "lives" there though is that it's insanely beautiful and simultaneously close to and far from the rest of the world. It's a 40 minute train from Milan for about 3 euros per person, and once you get there you'll see towns that seem to be only reachable by boat while others are just one more stop along the train route.

So what I'm saying is that it's really nice.

On an unseasonably warm January day, the two of us headed out to see what all the fuss was over, although I'd gone with Graham in 2012 and knew it was gorgeous. We arrived about 10:00 a.m. and began by stomping through the town of Como, which is pretty nice. It has a major medieval feel, with an old city-wall popping up in a few places and a couple of giant cathedrals. The main one, the Duomo (aka the Como Duomo, to people who like rhymes) was a major surprise to go in. It's nice from the outside, on a small plaza with cafes and a semi-attached belltower, but inside it seems cavernous, ornate, and beautiful. We were impressed. It's worth a look.

But we didn't go there for the church. We went for the lake and the mountains. So we continued through the town, out to the main square in front of the lake. Since it was January, there was an ice-skating rink set up in the middle of the square. It was small, and the Nutella crepe stand nearby was not yet open (why not?! Aren't crepes a morning thing? I don't understand the world anymore), so we started walking along the shore toward a park-like area and the series of villas that dot the shore of Lake Como.

The finest of the villas, although some other ones had boat garages

The view from the steps of the villa above. It's ok.

In the area of the park there were playgrounds, mini ferris wheels (with definitely unlicensed Disney characters painted on the sides), benches, a putt-putt course, a WWII memorial with fascinating quotations from survivors and victims, a giant shrine/monument for Alessandro Volta (inventor of the electric battery!), and a typical food-truck that made sandwiches and sold pop/beer. I stopped for a sandwich and had someone fix me a cotoletta sandwich with more care than I've ever been given by anyone in any profession ever. It was really incredible. I wish I could find that kid's name and cheer his name from on high (the internet) for decades, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

So we hopped on a boat and took a ride across the lake to the town of Bellagio. As soon as we exited the boat we breezed through the town - mostly closed up because it was January - and found ourselves going uphill and into a small park with a swingset. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Bellagio, not sure what to expect or what to do. Food was scarce, but the views were universally wonderful. The town is on a point in the lake, which is shaped like an upside down Y. This means that Bellagio has views to the north, southeast, and southwest, which is pretty darn good.

We headed back to Como as the sun faded and hoped to see the final day of their Christmas light display, although we didn't really know what to expect. It's not so much Christmas lights in the American sense (those do exist, just not what Como does), it's more of...well, here.

The entire city was just overflowing with people by nightfall. It's a getaway spot for thousand of people in Milan and in northwest Italy as a whole. We were a bit overwhelmed by the crowds, as there were four kids on the ice-rink when we arrived that morning and the evening showed about 100. Of course, the crowd meant that we were able to get a Nutella crepe from the stand, so all was right in the world.

We had originally planned to take the funicular up from Como to a town about 1000 meters higher and watch the sunset from an ornamental lighthouse up there (we'd been told that we must do this) but there just weren't enough hours in the day to make it happen. Instead it was a day of walking, water, parks, photos, mountains (looking at them, but not going up them), and probably gelato. No one famous though.

Next was our weekend in Florence. January was weirdly warm in Italy. Sorry if that offends any of you midwesterners.