Italian Anniversary

Our second year wedding anniversary! We celebrated this milestone at the lovely Lake Como in Northern Italy. Becs and I flew out early on Saturday morning and picked up our compact rental car at the airport near Milan. The Italians do compact really well; the streets are full of Bambinas, Smart cars and motorcycles. We were given the keys to our car and had to locate it amongst the dozens at the depot. Walking around and pushing the key remote, we came across ours – a left hand drive smart car with sign writing all over it. Nice. Laughing aside, this car turned out to be a blessing in disguise; the roads around Lake Como are narrow to say the least and there are often spots where it is single file. There are traffic lights at spots like these but the people in Italy don’t seem to pay too much attention to them.

So once our 2 small bags filled the boot space and the air conditioning was on (it was 25 degrees all weekend!), we set off to our first destination, the lake side villa where James Bond was seen relaxing at the end of Casino Royal. We managed to walk up to the gate of the villa but unfortunately had not yet exchanged our money for Euros and could not enter. Nonetheless, we caught a glimpse of the place from the entrance and decided that would be enough.

Hopping back into our car we drove along past George Clooney’s lake side villa. Our old friend George had originally invited us to stay at his place but we were far too busy to go see him so we just drove past and tooted. Our next stop was for some cash and ice cream and a walk through a huge villa and gardens in a place called Menaggio. The gardens were endless and immaculately kept. With the lake in front and the Swiss Alps in the background, this place certainly is postcard material.

Duncan had by now built up a good confidence in left hand driving and had staved off his urge to drive on his usual side of the road. Becs’s kept informing him that he had plenty of room on her side and was also a keen lookout at roundabouts which were another weakness of his. Looking left at a roundabout is essential. No close calls but only because there were no cars there when we blindly entered. At Menaggio, we took the car on the ferry across to Bellaggio (everything ends with o in this country). We were meant to take a lakeside road around to our hotel but found the road blocked and so had to take the mountain road over. This road was very popular with motorcycles and we found ourselves in the middle of some crazy racing.

Our hotel was located down a little dead end lane but was right on the lakes edge and we had a little balcony looking out onto the water. It was very peaceful being away from the crazy cars and bike on the busier roads. We ate at a local restaurant next door and headed to bed. The next morning the sun streamed in through our balcony doors and we had a lazy morning listening to the water lap on the shore.

After our hearty breakfast we hit the crazy roads once more and journeyed down the far side of the lake towards a town called Varenna. We drove around cliff edges and through endless tunnels, the longest we had ever been in. The roads were amazing and the lake and mountain views never stopped. At Varenna, we stopped at another villa and enjoyed the lakeside gardens and 18^th century buildings before heading up the steep hillside to a castle ruin for lunch. The views from the castle were the best we had ever seen. For some reason there were some hawks and an Owl kept there, perhaps it was a medieval thing. The sign outside the ropes was a little disturbing though, we wondering what type of tourists they had had trouble with in the past. We climbed some old towers and walked through courtyards before settling down for some lunch and a nice cold beer.

After lunch we headed around the top of the Lake to our second night’s accommodation at a 5 star B&B. It was probably one of the best places we have ever stayed at. Our room had 2 balconies that looked directly across the lake to a huge snow capped mountain. They had an in-house masseuse, a gym, sauna and pool. The House was an old converted mountainside villa that had been fully restored and modernised inside. We loved it and decided just to spend our afternoon up here doing not much at all but sipping a drink out on the balcony. Duncan took one of their mountain bikes down the hill to town to have a look around while Becs was busy being gently pummelled by the masseuse. There were hundreds of wind surfers and kite boarders on the water and we passed time watching them zig zag across the lake. We had dinner in house with the other guests and breakfast out on the deck in the morning. The hosts were marvellous, an English lady married to an Italian guy. The food was great, but what do you expect when in Italy? It was hard to leave the next day but all good things come to an end so we packed our little car up and headed home. The world was not quite the same for a while afterwards. Two years being married has been awesome, we are having such good times together and cherish every moment.