Lake Como, Italy

By Raige on Monday, October 23, 2017

For our last stop in Europe, we flew from Krakow to Milan for less than $50 per person on Ryanair. We picked up our rental car and drove the 2.5 hours to our hotel, Relais Villa Vittoria, in Laglio, located on Lake Como’s western shore.

I had the pleasure of driving since my good-for-nothing husband doesn’t know how to drive manual and it was legit $200+ cheaper than an automatic. Dad, thank you for teaching/ forcing me to drive stick. I ran into a slight problem when I realized I didn’t know how to reverse in this particular car. At one point, Ben had to push the car backwards so that I could reverse in neutral. Shame… I eventually learned that you have to lift this weird ring under the knob when you shift into reverse.

Laglio is home of our dear friends, George and Amal

Our fellow Fyre Festival survivor, PJ, is working in Vicenza, Italy for the month, and we convinced him to join us for the weekend. Side note: Fyre was the greatest. When everything went down, Ben and I were not so secretly thrilled that we didn’t have to go to the music festival and went on vacation instead. Best of all, we made made some pretty sweet friends including PJ (shout out to Ja Rule and our Fyre crew)!

We were #blessed with unseasonably warm weather and decided to walk the Greenway, a 10 km stroll along an ancient Roman road from Colonno to Cadenabbia. It was the perfect introduction to Lake Como, its quaint towns, villas, gardens, and incredible views. We stopped for lunch at Grand Hotel Tremezzo and droned over their famous floating pool (before getting politely scolded). After a 45 minute bus delay and lesson in Italian public transportation, we made it back to our hotel for a simple Italian dinner.

trying to compete with Copenhagen for hygge

We followed our friends’ advice and rented a boat (thanks Dan, Lauren, and Colbi!). We busted out beer and prosecco and tried our best to make a rap video, cruising along the central towns of Tremezzo, Bellagio, and Varenna. Exhausted from the superstar life, we reverted back to retirement and enjoyed an early dinner, snacking on meats, cheeses, and Aperol spritzes at Da Luciano.

Ben and I drove to Como the next day, and took the funicular to the small town of Brunate before hiking up to the lighthouse that overlooks the lake. We continued our walk through Como, stopping for gelato at Gelateria Lariana and popping our heads into the Duomo di Como. Ben experienced his first ever success in planning and booked a cooking class taught by Italian food expert, Paola Lovisetti Scamihorn. With Paola’s guidance, we cooked an amazing 3 course Italian meal and ate dinner with her family in her beautiful home. Highly recommended (we plan to write a separate post on this).

Paola’s Mamma Mia diet: eat pasta, drink wine, and lose weight

On our last day in Como, we visited Villa Carlotta’s beautiful botanicals gardens and museum before taking the ferry to Bellagio. We followed the NYT’s advice and ventured a bit outside town to eat at Ristorante Darsene di Loppia. We walked off our delicious meal in the touristy, yet irresistibly charming streets of Bellagio. We generally don’t know how to “relax,” but I think we did a good job. Thoughts?