Lecco

Ever heard of Lecco? No, you haven't. We only heard of it because it was the destination of a regional train in Milan. We secondarily heard of it because it's the 2nd biggest town on Lake Como, where we'd been a couple weeks earlier.

But this was January, and the same reasoning held up as when we went to Como; if it's January and it's warm enough to get by in a long-sleeve tee, you'd best get outside and enjoy it. So we booked a train to Lecco for the day and decided to do some hiking. It was wonderful.

First view of Lecco

The town itself was very similar to other towns we'd been to. It had a main walking street with loads of shops, butchers, cheeseries, and high-end clothing retailers. It had a waterfront park area where folks would stroll for what seemed like hours on end. It had all you might want, and then it also had a weirdly large number of teens, but we'll get back to that.

We started toward the nearest mountain, knowing that there was a path somewhere. We took a roundabout way, but slowly ascended until the trail stopped and stomped-out lines in the dirt were our directions. The views were nice though.

We hiked for a few hours before returning back toward the lake, and the town was newly buzzing as the afternoon hit. It was really unseasonably warm. So warm, in fact, that we strolled along the waterfront road until we came to a staircase down to the water's edge. Beneath the road was a veritable ledge, about five feet wide, with a bench the full-length (about 100 meters). We immediately shuffled past the two men sun-bathing - one in jeans and a winter jacket, the other in a speedo - and found ourselves all the way at the end of the ledge. Alone with Lake Como and a warming sun.

We napped. For a solid 40 minutes. It was terrific. Here's where we were.

After our 40 minute break,the two men were still in their winter jacket and speedo, respectively, but by the time we got back into the town it was late-afternoon and the atmosphere turned into something like "High school graduation party for the kids whose parents let them drink." It wasn't really our scene, as there were just youngish people everywhere and they all seemed to love cigarettes.

But we still had a nice time - even though it was nearly impossible to find food at 5:00. We had to resort to a supermarket. Again.

Lecco is nice!

Supermarket dining really became an unintended theme of our time in Europe. I guess when you start the day early and hike all day you're just not willing to wait until 7:00 for restaurants to open. Oh well.