One Year Away

Penny

We’ve added an Italy album with some pictures of us and our new travel buddies, Tara and Lora.

After arriving in Milan, we headed straight for the train station where we took an early train to Varenna.
That was to be our first stop in Italy and where we were going to meet up with Tara and Lora.

The train took us through tiny towns scattered along the coast of Lake Como.  The scenery was beautiful and made us feel as though we were on a movie set simply because it was just too perfect!  Our train stopped at the tiny Varenna station and with our backpacks we made our way down to the town and to our hotel by the lake-side.

We stayed at the Hotel Olivedo which is run by Laura, a very surly
lady who, according to Tara’s guide book and our experience, rarely cracks a smile.  The hotel was lovely and right by the small pier.  After check-in and a short nap, I got a phone call from Tara who told me that she and Lora had just arrived.  For two people who had just gotten off a plane and were jet-lagged, they sounded surprisingly energetic.

We met up with the girls and were off to our first Italian meal.  It turns out, most of our time in Varenna was marked by food and wine.

We did manage to take a hike up to Castello Vezio on our second day there.  The hike was longer than expected as a result of our poorly drawn map.  But the hike took us over beautiful hills and through tiny hill-top villages.  The  castello turned out to be no more than a small old fort but the hike to get there made it worth it.

While in Varenna, we also took a ferry to the nearby town of Bellagio.  Once there, we shared a bottle of red wine on a piazza and had dinner on a patio overlooking the lake.

Varenna was a great introduction to Italy.  Small, quiet and with a great landscape, it was a perfect place to recharge our batteries, get over jet-lag and prepare for the weeks ahead.