This summer between the end of daycare and the start of school, Chase had a whole 5 weeks off. We were lucky that my mom could come for two and half of them to hang out and take care of Chase while we worked. One of the weekends (while Nate was in Munich) my mom, Chase and I rented a car and drove to Lake Como.
The driving in Italy was crazy, especially near Lake Como where the roads were super narrow and two way. Overall, it was a beautiful place but we felt that there were WAY too many people and that distracted from the experience.
We stayed on the Griante side and visited Bellagio and Varenna by boat. The ferries were a bit confusing (to me) and we ended up traveling 6 times back and forth accidentally. In Bellagio, we walked around the downtown (top), saw some cute churches and then took the tourist train to the Villa Melzi botanical gardens (bottom).
In Varenna, we went through the Villa Monastero botanical gardens which were beautiful but we were already exhausted and it was quite hot at that time of the day. Then, we took a cab up to the Castillo di Vezio (circled below), where Chase took a nap on my lap. Our way down was much more intense than anticipated and was not helped by the earlier rain on slippery rocks. But, we made it down in one piece! Overall, we liked Varenna more than Bellagio.
On our way home, we decided to stop by the top of Stresa. It is a small town on Lago Maggiore and had way fewer tourists compared to Lake Como. We really enjoyed briefly walking around there and it would have probably been a better destination with similar views as Lake Como.
Lovely--but sounds like a lot of chaos! Glad you made it through the winding roads.
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