As I prepare to depart Thursday for Singapore and Chiang Mai, Thailand, I recall that two weeks ago today, I was prowling around Milan -- sightseeing, photographing, and killing time before my 9 p.m. flight to London. Writing this, I suspect I sound like quite the jet-setter, although by personality I'm almost the opposite. It's just that several trips have come together at nearly the same time.
My visit to Italy was the second chapter of a European adventure that began with the hiking trip in Scotland that I discussed two posts ago. With two of the Scotland crew -- John and Anne (my college friend Jim's brother and sister) -- we flew to Milan, took the train to Milan's Stazione Centrale railway station, and walked a couple of blocks to the hotel we had stayed in exactly a year before. There we met Ann and Tony -- the wife and husband, respectively, of John and Anne.
We arrived late. All of us were hungry, and we went out to dinner at an outdoor café a couple of blocks from our hotel -- a dinner begun at 10 p.m., which made me feel quite European and cosmopolitan. The following day we relaxed in Milan, and then the next morning we took the short (about 45 minutes) train ride to Como Town, on the southern shores of the lake. If we hadn't felt it before, we now realized that northern Italy was crammed with tourists this year, even at the relatively late date of September 9. The line for tickets on the lake ferry was endless, but we persevered as we watched the sailing of several boats, finally got our tickets, and boarded a hydroplane about 3 p.m. We arrived at Menaggio -- half way up the western shore of the lake -- about an hour and a half later.
After two prior years renting the same villa just north of Menaggio, I felt on very familiar ground by this time. We walked to the bus station and boarded a bus for the ten minute ride to Rezzonico, where our property's manager was waiting for us with big smiles.
As I approached the entrance to our rented villa, I felt the same as I had the year before -- that I had hardly been away at all, let alone an entire year. Everything looked the same, everything seemed welcoming. The manager realized there was no need to give us more than a cursory tour of the house we knew so well. She set us up with reservations for dinner at the local pizzeria, and wished us well.
We had only to choose our rooms, move in our bags, kick back our heels, and await the hour for dinner. The two bottles of complimentary wine in the kitchen's pantry called out to us.
The only real differences between this year and last were (1) the weather -- beautiful the first three days -- changed to clouds and occasional showers for the rest of the week; (2) we missed the presence of Jim and his son Graham, although the house felt a bit roomier with only the five of us; (3) we felt more at home in a well-remembered and beloved town rather than first-time visitors amazed by the magical world in which we found ourselves; and (4) my legs were still suffering from the infirmities that had plagued me in Scotland, limiting the amount of hiking and walking I could do.
Nevertheless, we repeated our ferry visit to Bellagio and Varenna, across the lake, and walked a considerable amount about those towns. Assisted by a morning dose of Tylenol, I also joined the others in climbing a steep, rough trail from the town to Varenna Castle, feeling a brief flush of late-life manliness, a feeling I had missed for the most part in Scotland. John and I also repeated last year's visit to the neighboring town to the north, Cremia, and this year pressed on further along a pleasant lakeside trail to the next village of Pianello.
Less actively, we discovered a new hotel restaurant about a mile from our villa, which also contained a gelateria with some of the best Italian gelati I'd ever sampled. And that's a high bar. And we discovered that our opening day piazzeria also served as an excellent source of caffe and croissants in the mornings. We wound up our week's stay with a final pasta dinner on Friday.
On Saturday, I sadly bid farewell to our group in Menaggio, where they caught the bus back to Como Town, and thence by train to Milan. Anne and Tony were leaving for home, but John and Ann were heading south to explore Sicily and the Naples area. I was sad, as I say, but also eager to greet my sister Kathy, brother Philip, and his wife Vicki, whose ferry pulled into Menaggio in mid-afternoon. We took the bus to Rezzonico, and almost lost our brother when the bus's doors closed and bus began moving while he was still struggling with baggage. It was a funny scene, although maybe only in retrospect.
Check-in formalities were repeated, and Philip and Vicki -- their first visit to Lake Como -- began settling in and getting a feel for the area. A photo from their first day shows Philip already stretched out on a lounge in our patio area, soaking in the sun.
Unfortunately, not a lot of sun soaking was available during this second week. The occasional showers of the first week became more frequent. I woke up about 3 a.m. Wednesday to the most dazzling lightning display I'd ever witnessed. The room was lit non-stop for about a half hour, and the roar of thunder was constant. We had occasional thunder and lightning throughout the rest of the week, but the rain that fell seemed to dry surprisingly quickly, so we still managed to get out and around quite a bit.
While Philip and Vicki were otherwise engaged, Kathy and I repeated the hike to Pianello that John and I had done the prior week. Tylenol again came to my rescue and made the hike easy and enjoyable.
We repeated the visit to Bellagio and Varenna (but not the climb to the Castle), where the crowds were even denser than they had been the week before. It was a relief to spend the rest of the week in the far more semi-rural atmosphere of our village and its surroundings. We did make an enjoyable visit (as had the group in the first week) to the Swiss city of Lugano, a beautiful lake-side town a little over an hour's bus ride from Menaggio. We had a great lunch. And then were totally drenched during our half hour return to the bus stop for the ride home, but the downpour seemed funny, rather than a disaster. (We are all former Pacific Northwest residents, after all.)
That same night, we had our celebratory dinner -- as we had with both weeks the prior year -- at the family-run restaurant Lauro in the village. As always, a wonderful meal in a casual but atmospheric setting.
So, again it was Saturday morning. Kathy's knee had been acting up, and so we skipped the ferry and took the bus all the way from Rezzonico to the train station in Como Town, and then the train back to Milan. That night, we had the best meal of either week at the restaurant near the station in which our second week's group had dined in 2022. The next day, we each headed home, our planes leaving at widely different times. Mine was the last, leaving at 9 p.m. for London, where I spent the night at the Terminal 5 airport hotel before leaving for Seattle the next morning.
An excellent two weeks. Will there be a fourth consecutive year at the same Lake Como villa? When I returned home, I was shocked to see that the first three weeks of September 2024 were already booked, as was the third week of August. In panic, I plunked down a deposit to reserve the villa for the last week of August.
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