Days 20-21: Lake Como

After the scorching heat of Venice, we were all looking forward to moving north to Lake Como and then to Switzerland.

We stayed in a town on the lake called Menaggio, which is mid-lake on the west side that sits directly on our route to Switzerland.  It sits in a convenient triangle between two other destinations on the lake, Bellagio and Varenna.

Our choice of hotel?  A youth hostel. Yes, five children, two parents, amd two grandparents in a hostel, and frankly, it worked out much better ban I thought it might.  Due to size of our group and the length of our stay (just two nights) it was difficult to find any reasonably priced accommodation in the expensive resort town of Menaggio.  An apartment wasn't an option for less than three nights (well, it was an option--I would just need to pay for the minimum three nights at already steep prices). A hotel wasn't much better as its not common to find quad rooms (and even tripples can be elusive) so with a group of nine we would need atleast three and likely four rooms.  I wasn't in the mood to pay $180-$200 (per room) for a two-star a room per night.  Thus, the Menaggio Youth Hostel at 80 euros a night was our choice:  two private rooms, one with three sets of bunk beds and the other with two.  However, only one had its own bathroom.  We used Abby as our excuse and took room with the bathroom, and set our elderly parents upstairs to shower with the granola-children at the hostel.  As the picture below of grandpa shows, the bunks fit a 5'10" man perfectly.  

Other than grandpa having a fitful first night due to the 20-something crowd entering the hostel at all hours of the night--which caused the porch light next to Grandpa' window to turn on and shine directly into his eyes (it wasn't until the next morning that we showed him that he actually had an exterior, metal window covering that blocked most light)--the hostel was not only a bargain but a reasonably comfortable place to stay.  Check out these views from our balcony (yes, our room even came with a balcony).

We were told to bring our own towels when I booked a few months prior--a fact I had forgotten until we noticed there weren't any in our bathroom. Our first morning most of us skipped a shower except for Jeffrey, who showered in his swim suit and then just drip dried in the room.  Twenty minutes later we learned that we could rent towels from the hostel for a euro.

It was sort of fun to see the 20-something crowd interact with each other on their own 8-week to 1 year tour of the world:  we ran into a girl from Lindon who was traveling with a German girl she met in Australia.  Where to next?  They weren't sure.  There is something appealing about aimless, "make it up as you go" travel.  I hope as many of my children as possible can take such a journey when they're old enough, staying at hostels, eurail pass in hand, and enough money to just get by--powered by a sense of adventure and a desire to explore, learn, and appreciate.

Lake Como was as good as advertised--a much welcome reprieve from the heat, the place was also startling beautiful.  Frankly, I wasn't that excited to go to Como, thinking it might be another tourist trap.  We didn't find it crowded or overly touristy.  Its water seemed clean (I had heard differently), and it countless villages that dot its shoreline, extending vertically up the hills that pour into the lake, are picturesque to say the least.  Most of the towns have restrictive building codes, and so the towns look pretty much like they did in the 19th century when this place was blossomed into a favorite tourist destination. 

We followed Rick Steves' recommendation of buying a day pass on the local ferry, which took us on a tour of a collection of towns of the lake.  We got off at Bellagio and spent most of our day there.  We had a typically long and delightfully relaxing italian lunch at a restaurant perched on the Punta Spartivento, the point of Bellagio which separates the lake into two legs--Lake Como and lake Lecco.

That evening Lisa and I dined with Grandma and Grandpa at a quaint, family-owned place in Menaggio while the kids ate a surprisingly good meal back at the hostel:  ribs and vegetables.

We're happy we stopped in for short stay on Lake Como--a great way to cap our three week stay in Italy, which offers a staggering diversity of scenery, culture, and art.   We also found the people of Italy warm and friendly, and our memories of this great country will be only be of the fondest sort.  

From Menaggio we traveled through Italian-speaking, Lugano Switzerland where we attended church on our way to Isenfluh (Lauterbrunnen Valley) Switzerland, the subject of my next entry.