Day 1, MXP to Milan to Lake Como to Bellagio
Plane, Train, Train, Boat, Bed!
I will admit, I wasn’t so sure about spending the first day
at Lake Como while on the plane. I mean,
it sounded great in Near Seattle, but would be survive the trip or would we
wind up in Switzerland? Oh well, I
understand Switzerland is nice…..
Phew! 20 hours after
we left our house in Near Seattle, we are finally in Milano! Since it was 9 AM we had a long time to go
before bed.
Well, actually we are Malpensa Airport, 50 km from
Milan. That is 31 miles for the US
audience. So we get off the plane, and
we walk, and we walk, and we walk and we get to immigration. A bored looking official stamped our
passports and we find ourselves in baggage claim.
We have no bags to claim, but we do have one very important
mission…a bathroom!
That problem taken care of, we start looking for the train…
Eventually we realize we have to leave the secured area
first.
This is when we hit our first Italy Irony. The exit gate has 2 signs. One is blue and for people coming from EU
flights. One is green and is for
everyone else. Sounds pretty clear, but
they both go to the same place. You
literally walk through a gate and are standing in the same exact spot as the
other gate. A woman with a huge trolley
of suitcases went through the wrong gate, and last I saw, they were hauling her
off for a strip search.
Well, not really, but she was being questioned pretty
closely.
We found the train station, got our tickets and were soon
being whisked off to Milan Centrale Stazione.
So we waited in a line at the ticket counter…only to be told
that wasn’t the right line and we needed to take a number.
Honest to goodness, it was like a comedy movie! We had number 809 and they were currently
helping number 623!
Hmmmmm…..
We did discover they had some machines on the other side of
the room that took cash, so off we went.
The town we were going to on Lake Como is called Varenna…not
to be confused with Verona. The line we
needed was heading to Tirano, not to be confused with Turino. With all this “not to be confused” I was
doing, I bought round trip tickets to Tirano instead of Varenna. Now they got us to where we wanted to go, but
I suspect we paid a little too much.
The train didn’t leave for an hour or so, so we had our
first Peche Te Fresca.
We drink a lot of
iced tea, and normally do not like it sweetened or fruited, but we both
developed a taste of Bottled Peach Iced Tea in Italy. Just be clear, Peach is Pesca and fish is
Pesce, don’t confuse the two, or you might just get a fish tea! Or at least a strange look!
When it was time to board, we went to validate our tickets,
but the machine was broken. There was a
nice man in an official uniform marking the tickets for people with pen. I hope this works!
But on the train we were!
Yah! And when they punched our
tickets, they didn’t bat an eye at the handwritten “stamp.”
The challenge on this hour long train ride, was staying
awake as to not miss our stop. The train
really just pauses for a moment.
We hopped off the train in Varenna and followed the signs and the crowds to the
lake. It is truly beautiful. Lake Como is a very deep lake nestled in the
foothills of the Alps.
We were able to
catch a ferry to Bellagio soon after our arrival. It is just across the lake, so a quick trip.
With a only slight misturn, we found our hotel. I was really impressed. We stayed in the Hotel Centrale
Bellagio. The building is old, but the
hotel has been lovingly restored.
Everything was brand spanking new, but had that old world charm. We checked in and the desk clerk escorted us
to the hotel’s pride and joy….a six passenger Otis elevator! Elevators are usually very small in Italy, if they exist at all.
Once in our room, I remembered Italian Pillows…They are
flat! New ones are flat, old ones are
flat, ones in cheap hotels are flat, ones in fancy hotels are flat. The pillows are really flat.
But I am in Freakin Italy, I don’t care!
We settled into our room, and then went for a walk. By this time it was midafternoon, and I was
starting to feel the effects of the time difference and the travel day.
We did have our first gelato of the trip, oh yum!
We wandered around the town of Bellagio, which is really a
pretty town. There are lots of cute
shops and restaurants.
On the very narrow alley, we’d have to stop occasionally to
let cars go by. One car was a Mercedes
with very dark windows and a chauffeur.
I am positive that George Clooney was in that car, and I am sure he
waved to me! Hey, it’s my blog, I can
make stuff up if I want to!
We went into the church in the main square.
A note on churches in Italy:
there are a lot of them. They are
like Starbucks in Seattle, several on each corner. From the outside, many of them are not much
to look at, the marble veneers are long gone.
But on the inside, the artwork and decorations are quite
impressive. And they are usually
free. I would quite often place a
donation in one of the offertory boxes.
Finally, at about 5 PM I hit the wall, I was stumbling
around and knew I just wasn’t going to be able to go on. We went back to the hotel to take a brief nap
and freshen up.
We then went and had our first fabulous dinner of the trip. It was phenomenal. I had Lake
Perch with Rice with Butter and Sage.
The perch was good, but the rice was something else. I thought BF was going to lick my plate! He had a lamb dish with fabulous veggies.
The great thing about this restaurant was the “waiting
area.” It was a small place and down a
set of wide stairs.
That is it on the
bottom left corner!
The owner also ran
the wine bar across the way. If you had
to wait for a table, you grabbed a glass of wine at the bar, and a cushion and
enjoyed the beautiful Bellagio Sunset.
It was almost too bad we didn’t have to wait. But then again, at that point I may have
curled up on the cushion and fell asleep!
After our lovely dinner, we wandered back to our hotel and
both fell into a long, deep sleep. It
really set the tone for the rest of our trip, and we did not have many issues
with jetlag this time around.
Day one was done!
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