Beautiful Bellagio:Reliving the Past

 “Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy

And now a pause for reminiscing on past Italian adventures. Ten years ago, on the 22^nd of August, Rob and I were married and due to work and university commitments we had less than two weeks for our honeymoon. I had a whole pile of frequent flyer points and when I rang the airline to find out where we could go, expecting to be told Bali or Singapore, we found out we had enough points to get to Milan. Pleasantly surprised we decided to book one night in Como and we worked out the rest once we arrived.

Of course coming from Perth this meant a flight to Hong Kong, a five hour wait, a flight to London, a two hour wait and then the flight to Milan. We arrived in Como early in the day and after a lunch decided to have a nap and we both slept eighteen hours. The next day we decided on two nights in beautiful Bellagio. We moved on from there for two nights in Florence, which will always be one of my favourite cities. Lastly we went to Venice for two nights with the plan to spend one night in Milan before our flight back from Linate airport.

We had such a brilliant time in Venice we didn’t feel like leaving when the time came and so we took a huge gamble and stayed an extra night. Waking early we caught a Vaporetto to Venice Santa Lucia and a train to Milano Centrale. In a state of panic at how fine we were cutting it to get to the airport my thin smattering of Italian evaporated and I asked a lady in a tabacchi if she spoke English so I could ask directions to the airport bus. She gave me a resounding “No” and so I slowly asked “ Dov'è… l'autobus…. per Linate…. per favour”. She then with perfect English replied “down the escalator, outside turn left”. We still laugh about this today”.

After making it to the airport just in time we connected through London and Hong Kong again and thirty two hours after we left Venice we arrived in Perth, and from memory while I slept Rob went to work. Ah the good old days and how different from how we travel with kids, seeing we booked most of our accommodation last year before we left Australia.

Back in the present, when we planned this trip, knowing that we didn’t want to do one huge stretch from Luzern to Venice with the kids, we decided to relive our honeymoon by visiting Lago di Como and adding a stopover in Bellagio. This was much simpler than I thought it would be. We took the train from Luzern direct to Lugano, which is such a beautiful journey even on an overcast day. Then leaving the train station we simply turned left and walked a couple of hundred metres to the bus stop and caught the 631 to Mennagio. It was a lovely big bus with storage underneath for all of our piles of baggage.

The kids enjoyed catching a bus for a change and were disappointed that it took under an hour to arrive in Mennagio. Crossing the boarder into Italy we suddenly left the cold wet weather behind and it has been, touch wood, perfect ever since. Perfect for me is somewhere in the mid twenties and arriving in jeans, jumpers and Doc Martins we were pretty hot hiking with all of our baggage to the ferry station.

Boarding the ferry for our very short ride to Bellagio I pulled out my camera to start taking photos of stunning Lago di Como and my lens, which had for a few days been playing up ,jammed halfway in and I was left to rely on Emma’s camera whilst mourning my lovely TZ40 which has served me so well, at last count 7937 photos. This also explains why these photos from Emma's camera don't match the text very well as her battery was flat when we arrived and so we were unable to take photos until the next day.

We visited camera shops to see if there was any hope for my camera. Apparently I would need to wait until reaching Venice according to the local shops and then my chances were slim for fixing for less than the cost of replacing it. Feeling hot and bothered we decided to grab bathers and head to the northern tip of Bellagio where there is a spot to swim in the lake and a lovely shady park with gorgeous views and even a café. The kids found it very cold so the swim ended up a quick dip for them followed by enjoying the shade for a while.

Hotel Splendide where we stayed on our honeymoon, right next door to our apartment

On the way back to the apartment we went in search of the café where we had dined on our honeymoon. From memory it was on a wide lane of steps leading up the town very close to the hotel we stayed in, which is right next door to the lovely apartment we booked for the night. We were confident that we had found the lane but we remembered sitting outside on the right hand side of the steps and either we were imagining things or our memories have become a bit dodgy over the past ten years.

Though our quest had failed we still enjoyed beautiful Bellagio, which is a place that mixes the best of both worlds, the architectural beauty of the hill towns with views of the glorious lakes and nearby mountains. The kids loved the idea of being in Italy, looking forward to pizza and pasta.  Mum and dad enjoyed the Rose in France, in Germany and Switzerland the beers and now we enjoyed a few glasses of the local vin rosso.

Our apartment, Charming Bellagio, was perfect for us, nothing overly fancy except for the priceless views and friendly welcome from the lovely sisters who own it. We had a three bedroom apartment with a kitchen, which we didn't use all staying less than 24 hours. They ladies suggested we catch the bus to Como in the morning as it left later and was far cheaper. But I stuck to our plan of catching the ferry in order to let the kids see the lake that Rob and I fell in love with on our honeymoon.

So after an early start we boarded the fast ferry to Como, sadly there is no outside seating but the views are utterly stunning. We arrived at Como and had breakfast in the shadow of the hotel where we spent out first honeymoon night. We then hiked through town to the train station and we were on our way to Milan and then off to Venice. It couldn't have been easier or more special.

One thing we noticed on this day was the change from trains in Germany and Switzerland, which are very quite with people speaking softly to each other, and the trains in Italy, which have a far more party like atmosphere. People bring delicious looking picnics and laugh and talk quite openly. It was great for our kids as they didn't feel like they needed to keep quiet all the time. The one thing that was a problem was the much more restrictive luggage space.

While we agree it is best to travel light it is completely impossible to travel light with four people for two months with clothes, books, art supplies and all of our cooking things (yes its my fault from bringing the Thermomix but we have saved so much by cooking half the time ourselves). We ended up with suitcases on our reserved seats and the table in between stacked high. The kids shared two seats with Rob and I shared with a suitcase on the other side. It was really funny and absolutely no home schooling happen this day, there was nowhere to put the books.