Living a Dream

Back when we spent a weekend in Madrid , we stayed with my college roommate, Parker. It was awesome. Since we both were living in Europe, it was just a matter of time before Parker came to us in Milan. As luck would have it, his train wasn't scheduled to arrive until about 9:00 on a Saturday evening, so Jenna and I decided to spend Saturday north of the city in a place called Bergamo. Bergamo only existed as an airport to us, as that's where the airport is which Ryanair flies out of (side note, they should've spelled "air" with a Y and made themselves a palindrome). We'd been there plenty of times, but never left the airport. The town - small city, really - is at the foot of the mountains and signifies the start of the massive valley that Milan rests in. We took a train to Bergamo and walked through the lower part of the city - Citta Bassa, in Italian - which is mainly modern. Many things are older than those you'd find in the States, but that doesn...

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...

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 p...