The first trip we took from Basel was to Como. On the 4-hour train ride, we passed through the Alps, where it was *snowing*! Crazy, we weren't expecting that. It was gale force windy the first day, but the ferry ride to Bellagio was nice and the landscape was absolutely gorgeous.
The villas surrounding the lake are jaw-dropping amazing (no, I didn't find Clooney's house, sigh), and each town, no matter how small, seems to have a beautiful old church. We took the “quick” ferry (traghetti) and it was under an hour or so to get up the lake to our destination. During our stay we took advantage of the yummy Italian cuisine and feasted on thin pizzas, fresh pasta, gelato, espresso as well as little jugs of wine. And with the price difference compared to Switz, we felt everything was very affordable, which was so great! We took a ferry across the lake to Termezzo and visited “Villa Carlotta” and its gardens, and then we ended up walking to the next town (Menaggio) because we stumbled upon a nice boardwalk along the lake. I think it was 3.5 km or so.
The next day we took the ferry to Varenna and walked up to the castle-turned-bird-refuge (after several mishaps locating the poorly marked trail), and the panoramic views from the top were truly spectacular. On the second day we also discovered the rooftop terrace of our hotel, so we did some late afternoon reading/snoozing in the sun.
The last night we stayed in Como so we could catch our early train. I pulled an awesome travel move and ended up leaving my purse (with our passports, train tix, wallet, bb….) at the restaurant where we ate in Como. Don't ask me how. So, after returning to our hotel I realized it was missing, so we ran (yes, ran) back through town looking like crazy
tourists….it was not fun running on full stomachs, that’s for sure. Thankfully they had my purse and all ended well.
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