Lake Como

After leaving Corniglia, we caught the train to La Spezia, then another one from La Spezia to Genoa, another one from Genoa to Milan, then one from Milan to Lake Como!! Our hotel was in a great spot, good views across a town square to the lake. We had lake view rooms on the fourth floor. After checking in we went for a wander and caught the funicular train up the mountain, it was very steep, 750 metres at 55 degrees in 7 minutes, but great views from the top. The next day we caught a ferrz on Lake Como to visit Bellagio (where George Clooney used to go to drink coffee before he sold his house on the lake). The lake is huge and the best waz I can think to describe its shape is that it is shaped like a pair of legs and a torso with Bellagio placed near the corner where the lake goes down the other leg (well that is probably the nice way to describe it!!) It is not that wide though and the ferry criss crossed to the various villages along the way to pick up and drop off passengers. We bought tickets that allowed us to get on and off wherever we thought looked good. The mountains around the lake were really high and very, very steep, not even any flat land much, even at the level where the mountains met the lake. There were hundreds of houses, most looked big and nice built around the lake, we assumed lots would have been hotels as well. We could see many small villages way, way up on the mountains, we wondered how the houses stayed there it was that steep. There was also one church that appeared to be miles from any other buildings, it was perched on the side of a mountain that to us looked totally inaccessible. It took two hours to reach Bellagio on the ferry and we were told that it would take most of the day to cruise the whole lake. Bellagio was beautiful, it had a flat promenade which was lined with shops and restaurants. There was another one or two small narrow streets that ran parallel with the promenade up the hill with a few narrow streets made up totally of steps connecting them. It was a great place to wander around, the weather was warm and there were lots of small shops, a lot of which sold silk scarves and mens ties as well as Murano glass, art galleries and shoe and clothes shops. We had a really nice lunch and enjoyed our visit to Bellagio. The town of Lake Como itself is nice too with plenty of things to do for the tourists, it was another beautiful town in a beautiful country. We all loved Italy.