3 Days in Paradise--Day 3

We awoke our last full day in Lake Como to sunny skies and much warmer temperatures. A good day for another ferry ride! So after breakfast we boarded a ferry bound for Cadenabbio, directly across the lake from Bellagio. Our reason for coming here was to visit the Villa Carlotta, a private home built in 1690 by Marquis Giorgio Clerici. In 1848 the villa was given as a wedding gift to the Prussian princess Carlotta when she married the duke of Saxen-Meiningen. (This had Chip asking, “Why didn’t you get a house like this for a gift when we got married?”)

Unfortunately, Carlotta never had the chance to spend a lot of time here. She was married when she was eighteen and proceeded to have five children in quick succession. She then died tragically young at the age of twenty-three. The villa eventually fell in to disrepair, but it was rescued by a private group, restored, and is now open to the public.

The interior of the villa is a delight to see, filled with a variety of paintings, sculpture, and furniture. But the real joy here is walking through the beautiful gardens filled with plants, trees, flowers, bamboo, statues, benches, a stream, fountains, and cats, lots of cats. The villa and gardens sit dramatically right on the end of the lake, overlooking Bellagio on the opposite shore. And, once again, we had the entire place practically to ourselves.

After spending a long, peaceful time in the gardens, we went back by ferry to Bellagio to begin another self-guided walking tour, “Walk Around the Suburbs of Bellagio.” Believe me, the suburbs of Bellagio are completely different from what we think of as suburbs in the U.S.!

We first went down a long, steep flight of stone steps, leading from the town of Bellagio to the suburb of Pescallo, a small fishing village dating back several centuries. How many? Well, in the 8th century Pescallo was one of the villages that supplied the greatest amount of fish to the market, and the town still supplies fish to local towns to this day. Fishing boats fill the harbors, and we realized that the time was perfect to enjoy a lunch of today’s catch. We had this lunch at the lovely Hotel Ristorante La Pergola, a pastel pink building with green shutters. From a window by our table, we overlooked the lake and the fishing fleet. I had the lake perch, which was fresh and absolutely wonderful.

After lunch we continued on our walking tour, next passing through the suburb of Oliverio, a suburb that has cultivated olive trees since the Roman times. Here we learned that Lake Como is the northernmost point in Europe in which olive oil is produced.

Shortly after Oliverio, we passed by the Vialone, a grassy stretch of property leading from this inland location directly to Lake Como. This is actually maintained as a town road, certainly the most unique road I’ve ever seen.

Next we entered the suburb of Regatola, where plaques commemorate Alessandro Volta, the famous Como scientist who invented the voltaic cell; and the poet Giuseppe Parini. Both stayed in Regatola during their lives.

The next stop was the suburb of Guggiate. We decided to use the facilities here at an inauspicious place named Willy’s bar. The place was full of locals, most of them old men with little or no teeth. While I was taking my turn, I became aware of raised voices, these men yelling at each other in Italian. I thought to myself, “Please don’t let Chip be involved in whatever is going on out there!” Fortunately he wasn’t, although he was certainly getting an unexpected taste of the local culture. We got out of there quickly!

Our tour next took us to the suburb of S. Giovanni, home to the Nautical Instruments Museum, which unfortunately was closed. The suburb gets its name from the Church of S. Giovanni, which was the first church built in Bellagio back before the 10th century. We strolled down to the shore to see the church, but it was nothing compared to something else that’s located there.

You see, docked along the waterfront of S. Giovanni are the traditional boats of Lake Como, which are known as “Lucie.” They get their name from one of the main characters (Lucia) in Alessandro Manzoni’s novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed), which takes place in Lake Como and Milan. I’m reading this book right now and can’t wait to come to the part where he describes these boats. They’re easy to recognize with their distinctive framework of three arches. These are designed so that the boat can be covered in case of storms or intense sun.

And those weren’t the only unique watercraft we saw. In the next suburb, Loppia, we saw two very rare Larian gondolas, which were constructed in and are unique to Lake Como. They were used up until the end of the 19th century to transport goods and animals, and these two are remarkably preserved given that they haven’t been used in over a century.

The last stop on our walking tour were the gardens of Villa Melzi. Although the villa is still the property of the descendents of Francesco Melzi D’Eril, the former vice president of the Cisalpine Republic, who built the home in 1808, the gardens are open to the public. The gardens are beautiful, with a simply perfect lakeside location.

Once again we had worked up an appetite, and we decided to return to the Enoteca Cava Turacciolo for our last night in Bellagio. What a special night it turned out to be! Shortly after we were seated, another couple was seated at the table next to us. After about an hour, I noticed that she had begun to take some pictures, most of them of her left hand. I said to Chip, “I’ll bet they just got engaged.” So when the opportunity arose, I asked if they would like a picture of the two of them. They did, and after taking the picture, I came right out and asked if they had just gotten engaged. Sure enough, he had proposed to her earlier in the day, and she had accepted. But we soon learned that, although she had said yes, she had doubts and just didn’t have faith that love could last. We told them that we had been married for almost sixteen years. Well, evidently they had been watching us during the evening, and the woman’s face suddenly lit up. She was thrilled to see how happy we were together after all that time, and this suddenly gave her hope for their own future. Yes, love can last, and we wish this wonderful couple, Primo and Marie, a long and happy life together.

The next day we had to leave magical Lake Como. We awoke to discover that it had rained all night, which means it had been snowing up in the mountains. The mountains directly out our window were now miraculously covered with snow; up until then they had been bare. What a wonderful departing gift this was!

Instead of taking the ferry back to Como, we decided to take the bus, an hour-and-a-half ride down narrow roads, right at the edge of cliffs with sheer, harrowing drop-offs (Mom, you would have loved it!). I was sitting in the far right seat, and most of the time it seemed as if there were just inches between the bus and the drop-off, which led me to hope desperately for two things: one, that the bus had good breaks, and two, that the bus driver hadn’t been out too late the night before!

Fortunately, we made it back to Como with no incident, where we boarded the train back to Florence. What a memorable week we had! This will certainly go down as my best spring break ever!