Lago di Como

Despite the crazy roads that Nigel wanted to take us on (and the traffic around the base of the lake), we made it up to the sleepy little town of Varenna, which is a bit tucked away from the touristy parts of Lake Como, and hence - EXACTLY what we wanted for the first few days of our honeymoon. It was raining a little bit and cloudy and stayed that way both days we were there, which was also PERFECT. It made everything so sleepy and slow and romantic and made us feel like we could be just us.



We got to our hotel, Villa Cipressi (meaning Cyprus, as in the trees that were all over Italy) around 5pm and checked in and went up to our room. At first I was a little nervous, because we'd paid for a lake view, but we opened the door and the room was sparse and dark and the window seemed to look out on a brick wall. As I got closer I realized, of course, that there were shutters on the outside of the window, which were closed (hence the darkness). We opened the window and then the shutters and beheld the view in the bottom post. Except a little cloudier. Which was just as amazing. We rested in the room for a while with the windows open, looking out at that gorgeous lake and listening to the rain come down outside and just basically being in bliss. Pure bliss.


Then we went downstairs and had dinner at the hotel's restaurant and had an EXCELLENT bottle of red wine and a WONDERFUL meal. Maybe it was just the glow of the first real day of honeymoon, but we think it was one of the best meals of the whole trip. Top 5 for sure.


The next day we woke up late and missed breakfast at the hotel, which was a little dissappointing since 1) i love a free hotel breakfast and 2) i was looking forward to my first authentic Italian espresso. But we wandered about the little village looking for a place to have breakfast and instead found a yarn shop. It was right by our hotel and we popped in because my mom had mentioned she was going to knit us a blanket at some point and if we found any yarn in Italy we liked, she'd weave it in. Well, we went back and forth on color for AGES and the nice little lady in the store, who spoke no English, but we did pretty well understanding her, was so patient with us and SO sweet. We took a picture.


By this time it was after 12noon and we'd eaten nothing so we went into this little pizzeria and shared a greek salad (wrong somehow, but REALLY good feta) and a pizza. And then we popped into the tobacco shop on the corner (half bar, which in Italy means bar plus sandwiches plus ESPRESSO and half...bodega, for lack of a better word. You can buy tobacco, train tickets, film, etc) and had our first Italian espresso. LOVED it.



We spent the rest of the day wandering around taking photos of this little fishing village. We started in the historic gardens at the Villa Cipressi, which were gorgeous and the path led us down to this little boathouse that I loved.



Then we wandered the opposite way into town and loved all the steep side streets and brightly painted houses. You actually can't change the color of your house in Varenna without asking permission (we learned that from Rick Steves).




We loved the cobblestone streets and flowerboxes in every window (this is true of all of Italy, we'd come to find out - which I love. Makes me want some on our fire escape) and cool doors everywhere and shutters on every window.


Why don't Americans use shutters the same way Italians do? It's so romantic.



I just really loved these blue shutters. Can you tell? They are MY BLUE.


We had lunch at this cute little bar with outdoor seating where there were some very bold ducks and yummy sandwiches. And wine, of course. Two things that were required of virtually every lunch and dinner on our trip. Outdoor seating and wine. Yes please.

We went back to the hotel in the late afternoon to clean up and warm up before dinner and then we wandered around looking for a restaurant. We tried the Albergo Milano, which is supposed to have great food, but it was the one night of the week that they were closed. We wandered over by the ferry but weren't feeling it, so we ended up back at the same little bar/trattoria that we went to for lunch. We sat overlooking the harbor and it was pretty fantastic. It wasn't raining on the 2nd day here, but it was still overcast and cool and we watched the mist clear over the mountains across the lake. Gorgeous. Stunning. Amazing. Loving every second of it.