martedì 26 luglio 2011

Bellagio and Lenno


For my final day at Lake Como, wanting to save my hiking strength and enthusiasm for my upcoming trip to the Pyrenees, I decided to doss around the lake doing very little. (And to be honest, apart from mountain and watersports, sitting in the sun eating gelato and admiring the beautiful surroundings is pretty much all there is to do at Lake Como. This is not a criticism.)

I took the boat from Menaggio to Bellagio, one of the prettiest towns on the lake, which sits at the end of the Triangolo Lariano between Lake Como and Lake Lecco. Being stubbornly un-lemming like in my natural behaviour, I avoided the lakefront next to the ferry terminal and headed straight up the hill and down the other side, where I discovered the other, much quieter shore and port.


Very few of Como's towns offer great possibilities for swimming, but it can be done either from the small beach south of the Villa Melzi or from the steps near the garden out at the very point of the triangle. A creepy man with his T-shirt pulled up to reveal half of his chest appeared to be following me at this point, however, so I ran away as fast as my flip-flops would carry me and hopped on a boat to Lenno for my swim instead.

From Lenno, I decided to take the bus back to Menaggio, which turned out to be a good decision, as around 6 o'clock thunder started roaring and the heavens opened, so the hour long boat trip would not have been particularly entertaining. Instead I had the fun of standing at the bus stop without an umbrella next to a slightly nutty Italian lady who seemed to feel that the lateness of the bus (by 15 minutes) combined with the rain was evidence that the wrath of God was being targeted in her direction* and stood beseeching the sky to tell her what she had done to deserve this until the bus finally swung around the corner.

* I suspect that if you jump to this sort of conclusion every time something fails to happen on time in Italy, you are well on your way to suffering from some kind of a divine persecution complex.

1 commento:

Laruchka ha detto...

Haha, I love this post. The men with the T-shirts pulled up over their guts and the wailing ladies - only in Italy!