Just yesterday, it seems, I was excited about the first signs of spring, and here we are now -- almost half-way through August. The sun still hot, but its rays having a slightly more golden cast than a month ago, less fiercely white, more mellow. The flip of the calendar to August is the time of year when the start of school seemed no longer a distant threat, but a looming horror. (Actually, I always looked forward to it, but I seemed to have been an exception.)
But this year. I've been looking forward to August, as I have in several recent years past. On August 27, I fly to Rome as the first step in reclaiming "my villa" on Lake Como, the lakeshore house that I've increasingly believed to be my own private vacation home.
As some readers may recall, a week's rental at Lake Como was to be a tail-end treat for close family members in 2020, following what was to be a gigantic birthday party in Levanto, near the Cinque Terre. But the spoil-sport pandemic intervened, and the party was canceled, along with our Levanto rentals. But, somehow, the villa we had rented on Lake Como remained on the books, although pushed forward 16 months from May 2020 to September 2021. My sister and our cousin were the only other persons willing to brave the still rampant virus, which required jumping through a number of governmental hoops.
That first visit in 2021 was a great success, and I fell desperately in love with Lake Como. Someday, we'll return, I vowed. "Someday" turned out to be the following September. We were joined in 2022 by a number of travelers as the virus became less virulent and less threatening. And again, in 2023, a number of us returned.
In 2024, we didn't rent "my" villa, but began early plans for a return in 2025. So many people were by then interested in visiting the lake that we rented the villa for three weeks. And those three weeks will begin three weeks from today.
It won't take anyone by surprise. I have deluged all the upcoming participants with encouraging emails for the past year. I only hope no one feels so well-prepared that they no longer feel the compulsion to actually show up in person -- why not simply mull over the contents of my emails?
I'm not worried. I think everyone senses that Lake Como has a magic that can be experienced only in person. Reading about it only offers hints.
The participants have been organized into three groups, one group per week, although some lucky folks will attend for more than one week.
I arrive in Rome on August 28, spend the night, and take the train to Milan on August 29. All seven of us who are scheduled for the first week will gather in Milan, spend the night, and then take the 45-minute train ride to Como town the morning of Saturday, August 30. Our plans, although not cast in stone, are to take the ferry from Como to Menaggio, on the west shore of the lake, and then a ten-minute bus ride to the small village in which we find our villa. Alternatively, it would be possible, although more prosaic, to take a a bus directly from the Como train station to our town.
We check in Saturday afternoon, enjoy the villa and the surrounding countryside for a week, and then send the first group on it's way, and welcome the incoming second group. The third group's stay concludes on September 20, after which I also sadly make my way home. Waiting nervously to be berated by my two cats for having abandoned them for such a long stretch of time.
As must be apparent, I can hardly wait for my flight to take off from Seattle. I'll give you a wrap-up report when I return, because I'm convinced that there is nothing more appealing to friends than to hear the most minute details of my vacations. I only regret that I'll be unable to close the doors, darken the room, and offer you that extensive, narrated slide show you would so dearly long to watch.
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Photos:
Top: Lunch in Lenno, midway through an 8 mile hike along the lake shore south of Menaggio (2022).
Bottom: View of Lake Como from our villa's balcony (2023).