Lake Como and Milan, Italy

Lake Como
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The next day we began the drive to Lake Como, Italy. We left our Swiss lake with hesitation-beauty such as what we had in front of us is hard to find. We hopped into our Volvo wagon, and followed the instructions of the GPS system. This system took us up one of the Swiss Alps. The drive was absolutely beautiful. As we continued to go higher and higher, we all began to shift a little in our seats. We stopped about halfway up and took some really cool pictures. We continued on with our drive after we had all regained our courage and we were pretty much to the top of a mountain-only to find that the road was CLOSED. We were in shock!!! As we drove back down the STEEP and windy mountain road, we stopped and asked a few workers in hotels and gas stations about this road. They were like, “Yeah, it’s closed. You can’t go through-you will have to drive all the way back down and into Lucerne.” We stopped in a small town about halfway just to make sure we were doing the right thing. A lady in a store told us that the road that was closed would be opened up again on Sunday. We were about 4 days too early.

The view we had from our hotel window
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So, the troopers that we are, we headed on and our 3 hr trip to Italy-took us 5-6 hours instead. We managed to work our way through tome tiny & windy streets and got to our hotel. The area of lake Como is almost as impressive as the lake we were at in Switzerland. The only difference is that there were no snowy mountains and the lake was much bigger, therefore not as green and pristine. All around this gigantic lake were little towns nestled in the mountains. It was a completely different look from the houses and small villages we viewed in Switzerland. The Italian homes were somewhat Mediterranean looking. The area was gorgeous and hey, it’s Italy-so what are you going to do? Eat of course. We found a nice place for dinner and gorged ourselves on pizza, pasta, and mussels for Frank. We headed back to our hotel because they had a big screen TV all ready to go for the games. We sat down and 15 minutes later we were surrounded by many older people. Apparently we were staying at a place that an entire tour bus of 80 yr old British people had also booked. As you can imagine, Frank and Alan didn’t find this scene too appealing. The plan was to move on the next day instead of staying and just relaxing in the Como area. We got up early the next day and sat by the pool in our swimsuits until noon. Then, we checked out of the hotel and took a ferry to another little village on the lake called the Bellagio. This city had many steep and winding cobblestone streets with lots of shops, gelato stands, and Italian restaurants. We walked through the town, had a quick and tasty lunch of Italian food, enjoyed some gelato and took the ferry back to where we had stayed.

cities nestled in the mountain
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Then, we hopped back into the rental car and drove to Milan. Once we arrived we took a cab to the city center and viewed the large Duomo and town square. The city was busy and because it was already evening, were unable to do much shopping-which is what Milan is known for. We did manage to sneak inside a Prada store; unfortunately, the 4 of us combined could not afford a pair of shoes or a handbag there. We left the square for the restaurant and bar area. Here we found restaurants setting up the street with outdoor seating and tables for happy hour. The strange thing was that we couldn’t really find an Italian restaurant. There were all these bars that offered appetizers with the purchase of a cocktail. It was very Spanish-like. We found a bar, ordered a drink and grabbed some finger food instead of having a nice “Italian” meal. The next morning after breakfast we had to head back home. Before our 9-hour drive, we went to a grocery store and Frank loaded up on some pasta and coffee that his mom cannot find in the U.S. Our 9-hour trek took us through Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, and Belgium, in addition to the final hour of driving in the Netherlands. This allowed Frank and Alan to view 7 countries in 4 days. Okay-France, Germany and Belgium don’t really count because we only drove through it, but this definitely was a whirlwind tour of parts of Europe!