Lake Como - Ogliasca, Italy
Ogliasca, Italy
From Lugano we crossed the Swiss border and drove around the lake for a short while before crossing the hills to Menaggio and taking the ferry to Varenna which is on the Eastern side of the Lake Como. It was a short lakeside drive up to Oligasca and to our very comfortable holiday home for 2 weeks.
Our house is on a small Peninsula that faces south, catching all day sun and looking down to Bellagio and over the small Italian lakeside villages that are peppered down either side of the lake. Ursi & Tom and family, who had just finished their 3 week holiday at their house, were there to greet us. It was great to meet them all, very nice people. Gina, their cat, had gone into hiding so she stayed on and joined us for an extended holiday.
Our house is very close to the lake edge with a steep 50m walk down to a private access to the water. The lake is generally calm in the morning with people swimming, paddle boarding, canoeing, water skiing, boating and fishing. The wind comes up in the afternoon and the lake then becomes busy with hundreds of kite-surfers and a few yachts and power-boats – it’s peak holiday time. The wind has been coming straight in our direction but it rises up and over us, leaving just a nice zephyr. Some days it's very hot. The water at our northern end is clear and warm and safe for swimming. We see 4 different species of fish while snorkeling...bullies, perch, trout and carp. In the South whilst clear the water, sadly, is not so clean so we're lucky to be where we are.
This is our 6th and last home exchange for this trip. Once we've unpacked our gear, spread out and got comfortable we head to the supermarket. Having a car we had the luxury of going to a hypermarket in Colico to stock up rather than relying on the smaller local shops. This is the best supermarket. Loads of very,very fresh good quality fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, delightfully priced good wines and even Nespresso-compatible coffee pods. Except for Switzerland, language has been a difficulty in the supermarkets - our German, French and Italian language skills are barely adequate, so difficulty in understanding labels and discussing meat and meat cuts has lead to the occasional unexpected purchase. Also, we've learned to remember to weigh and price all of our vegetables before we get to the check-out.
Many of our days were spent down on the lake after breakfast and coffee, swimming, canoeing and snorkeling in the warm and remarkably clear water. In the afternoon we sit on the wonderful deck with its shelter from the sun, watching the activity on the lake. This is all so very enjoyable that we have to make a determined effort to step out from our paradise to do some touring in the area.
The peninsula that we are on has a hill-top village then a green area a couple of kms down to the northern point where there is an Abbey/Priory that has existing for 8-10 centuries. Monks are living there now, quite peacefully on a large piece of land with beautiful views of the coast and mountains and distilling and selling sell what apparently are potent liqueurs. Our walk to the monastery took us through the village and down the other side by road, returning through a bush walk. This was after a really nice pasta lunch at the very busy and very good value,"locals" restaurant.
The next day, following a night of lightning, thunderstorms and heavy rain, we drove down for lunch at Varenna, a cute lakeside town that looks out over to Bellagio. We visited the Villa Monastero, a former convent that was turned into a residence in the 17thC and now a museum and upmarket conference facility. It is ornately furnished and decorated, including some walls that were covered in finely engraved leather! The beautiful gardens included a huge magnolia tree, said to be 400 years old, that drapes elegantly over the lake.
Another day we drove around the top of the lake to Dongo which is on the opposite shore from where we are living. We had a pizza lunch then walked down through Musso on a cycle track that took us along some narrow pathways down to the lake-front. It was interesting to see the wide array of houses, the small beaches, and even dedicated fishing areas on our wanderings.
You can't stay at Lake Como without going to Como so we drove down to Bellano and caught the slow ferry that stopped everywhere giving us an opportunity to sit back and enjoy the changing landscape. The ferry ride takes us to Bellagio where the lake splits in 2, then down the Western arm to the bottom of the lake which is Como. We were lucky enough to have a "local" on board - a German who has a holiday house in Bellagio and who does the boat trip one a year, with his binoculars, to see what's been happening. He knew the "names" associated with some of the stunning Villas we saw. It seems that several of the older villas were built by Cardinals taking a break from Vatican life.
Como is a lovely little "city" with the expensive shops, lots of restaurants/cafes. It seems that wherever we are in primo shopping areas they're either closed because it's a public holiday, a Sunday or it's siesta time! We didn't really have time to shop anyway, by the time we'd had lunch, snooped around and gone up in the funicular* for a great vista of Como and surrounding areas. We got the fast hydrofoil back up the lake and went down for a swim. It is soooo nice to be back in our lovely home after a day out.
Being August and prime summer holiday time we expected the ferries and towns to be hectic, but we hadn't really noticed it until our second to last day when we drove down to Varenna to ferry across to Bellagio. The ferries were really busy, Bellagio was really busy, parking to get to the ferry wasn't quite as easy as we had been used to. There's lots see in Bellagio in way of shopping, museums, villas and their gardens, churches etc as it is in a primo spot on the lake so has been a destination for centuries. We've already seen so much on our travels that we're happy to leave the busy town centre. We found a very pleasant lakeside restaurant for an earlyish lunch of local fish then did a self-guided walk around the nearby suburbs of Bellagio, ending with a wander through the gardens of Villa Melzi on the lake shore. After another hot wait for a ferry we enjoyed getting back to the peace and quiet of our own lakefront paradise. After a nap one of us went to Colico for a petrol and rubber fix at the large kart track facility, while the other enjoyed a nice Italian white wine on the terrace at home.
All good things must come to an end. We're on the road home stopping at Turin for a night, dropping off our car, then Geneva for 2 nights, then train to Zurich for our flight home.
*Stats on the funicular: 1,084 metres, rises 496m, gradient 55%. 1st used in 1894.