Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Bella Italia: Lake Como

On the way home to Germany, we stopped at one final place in bella Italia: Lake Como. One word: stunning. Now we've seen a lot of beautiful scenery in our European travels, but the beauty of the lake with the mountains and the picturesque towns--amazing.

I don't remember the names of these towns, but they're right across the lake from Bellagio

Bellagio

Let me just say my husband is a hero for his driving during this trip. Especially around Lake Como. The streets are N-A-R-R-O-W and the tour busses abound. You never knew when you'd see one whipping around a tiny corner and you'd have to slam on the brakes. Whew. One reason we didn't want to drive around the lake any more than we had to, despite the beautiful scenery!

We found our hotel (about 1/2 a mountain up from the lake), dropped our stuff, and immediately went on a hike for a good lake view. We weren't disappointed!

Love that our girls still run towards churches, despite how many we've visited so far.
View from the back side of the church
The girls ran around and around the small church while we took some pictures. The lighting was beautiful! We had a few heart attacks with the low wall (the wall I'm sitting on) and the girls leaning over too far, but thankfully, we all walked back to our hotel unscathed.
 
 
 

Our hotel, where the menu is in three languages, but not all hotel employees speak all three!
 
 
Jon and I were super excited to find something on the menu that had so far eluded us. Risotto! We both love the recipe for risotto that's been passed down from Jon's grandmother, and we really wanted to try it in Italy. (His grandmother's family also emigrated to the US from Italy.) It was delicious! We were thinking of you, Nana Rose!
 

Our cozy quarters during our last night in Italy.


What a beautiful country! We loved our time there, and it's been wonderful sharing the journey with you, faithful blog readers. This is the last post for Italy, but definitely not the last post on our travels in Europe. See you again soon!
 
Ciao, Italy!!

6 comments:

b.niel said...

beautiful! We stayed in Bellagio! It was awesome. Cool pics.

Evan said...

Oh man, Lake Como! It's nice to see it again... Beth and I have wonderful memories of our two short days on that stunning lake. Too bad you couldn't take the boat up the lake instead of driving; I, too, give Jon major props for driving around the lake. Looks like you stayed near Menaggio? I suppose you drove past Villa Carlotta too late to visit... Thanks again for sharing all your wonderful travel moments!

Evan said...

Looking again at these pictures, I'm also impressed by how clear it is, especially for being in the evening. We had really nice weather when we visited, but even so the lake was a little hazy. You were very fortunate!

Tracy Staley said...

Lake Como is officially on my bucket list!

Nana said...

How wonderful all of the pictures from Italy have been. Thanks for taking us there! The clarity in your pictures is amazing. What a great trip!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for all the Italian blogs!! We have enjoyed them so much!! Loved these latest pictures and the risotto brought a tear to my eye. Nana Rose would have loved to see your pictures of the rice and all the others!! You two need to write a book for military families on how to enjoy a deployment to Europe!! YAHOO TO YOU!!!
LOVE,
A & J