The Magic of Menaggio

Thursday, April 21, found us on our way to the Lake Como area of Italy for a long weekend!  DJ had three  paid holidays off, and our anniversary was coming up so we thought a little vacation was in order.  We left Basel that morning for what was supposed to be 4-hour trip into northern Italy.  I just love the fact that in a matter of a few minutes/hours, we can leave Basel and be visiting another country.  It was a beautiful drive.  I didn't take pictures from the car, and we wanted to make good time so we didn't stop and take any, either.

Besides spectacular mountains, pristine lakes, picturesque villages, and patchwork farms, we saw (and went through) a lot of these:


One of 53 (give or take a few)!  Oh, and excuse the dead bugs on the windshield!!

One of those tunnels, Gotthard, is most interesting.  There are actually stop lights which regulate the flow through the tunnel, and it's lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng---17 km to be exact, which on my computer's handy-dandy conversion tool ends up being 10.56 MILES long.  It was kind of exciting until DJ started talking about what it would be like if there was an earthquake....

These shots were actually taken on the way home going through Gotthard, but thought they were kind of fun:



Going in.......



Coming out.

Anyway, after making our way through most of the tunnels, we discovered they were the easy part of the trip!!  We made it to the town of Lugano, Switzerland, and was I ever grateful for our GPS and the fact that it was working and KNEW where we were supposed to be because if I had had to use our Mapquest instructions, we would still be weaving in and out of the city streets.  Streets would change names multiple times before you needed to make a right or a left turn, and you could never figure out what street you were on.  It was an adventure, but the most harrowing adventure was yet to come---driving on narrow, winding mountain roads way above a lake below (not Como) with crazy Italian drivers hogging the road and driving at incomprehensible speeds for the conditions!  Luckily, for us we made it just above Lake Como and then we got to do hairpin turns all the way down the side of the mountain---was grateful I was raised in the mountains, but I think I was about ready to "lose my cookies" a few times.  I would have taken pictures of the gorgeous views, but I was scared to take my eyes off the road (DJ always needs an extra set of eyes, right?), and there was a guaze-like, parchment-paper-like haze on the lake that we hoped would go away so we could get better shots.  Unfortunately, we never saw very many moments with clear views of the beauty of Lake Como.

Next, on the agenda was trying to find the hotel for which our reservation confirmation was still sitting in Basel on the desk!!  Neither of us could even remember the name of it for awhile.  I told DJ to keep driving, and if I saw the name I'd recognize it---was pretty sure it had Victoria in the name.  You have to undertand that we are still perched on the hill, coming down, seeing all these crazy little signs for hotels, etc.  It wasn't like we were on a flat grid where we could backtrack or turn around easily or go around the block!!  Luckily, I told DJ to turn left at the right spot, we saw a sign, and we followed a one-lane brick road along the lake until we came to this:


...and DJ went in, hoping above hope, that I remembered the right place.  Whew, we had reservations!

It was a beautiful, old hotel.  I wish I would have gotten pictures of the brocade couches and chairs in the lobby, the patterned carpets, the flowing satan draperies, and the crystal chandeliers.  Unfortunately, the room, though adequate was nothing to write home about, a little dated, but we did have a lake view (DJ actually wanted me to get it even though we had to pay extra---what happened to my husband?).  The view was never what we had hoped because of the haze, but still lovely, and the breezes that would blow in at night were heavenly (at least for awhile---then it just got darn cold!).  Here's a view of our hotel from the lake:


The mountains surrounding the lake were incredible!



From this picture, you get a sense of the houses and buildings perched on the mountainsides (look further back at the next hill); the haze as you look further back; and the historical nature of the buildings---these things are old, but oh, so quaint.

We were so relieved to finally be in Menaggio and to have found our hotel, that we just totally took it easy the rest of the day.  We meandered through the village streets, strolled along the lake, and eventually went for pizza at a little cafe on the waterfront.



There were gardens all along the lakefront.





Have never seen such beautiful Wisteria  until this trip.  Wisteria was all over!





Along the public parts of the lake, were the beautiful flower gardens but all these nice lamp posts and wrought-iron fences as well.  It was charming.



Every once in awhile, there was a planter full of red geraniums!



The wrought-iron was exquisite!

 

Sometime in our early exploring, we rationalized that since we hadn't had lunch, but it wasn't time for dinner, that we should stop at one of the many shops and have a little gelato---mine, strawberry; his, raspberry:

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the buildings and all the little architectural elements that I love so much---figure the few people that follow my blog, might be sick of them; and DJ is certainly tired of waiting for me to take the pictures, but here's just a few random shots of things we saw as we walked:



Flags like this Italian one lined part of the lakefront.  There was even a US flag!!



You get an idea here, of how buildings/homes were scattered up the hills.





Random statuary on our way to dinner!  Very modernistic.  DJ isn't so thrilled that I am taking a picture of it---can you tell?



This is what is etched in the darker column shown above---really unique.





Just loved the detail here---the shutters, the stucco, the wrought-iron, the balconies were all very common.

 


There were several modes of transportation on the lake---paddleboats, kayaks, motorboats, ferries, steamers, the "Rapido" boats (they were super fast and sounded like a jet when they started out---the boat is actually lifted up out of the water on ski-looking things), and sailboats:

We had an enjoyable dinner kind of late---most places don't even open until between 6:30 and 7:30.  This was our view as we were right on the water's edge, eating on a patio---there again, the view so washed out by the haze:





So some may ask why Menaggio was so magical.  In a nutshell, the location was best for us to drive to, not taking as long as other locations on the lake; it was accessible by ferry to all the hot spots on the lake; and the lakefront was more easily accessible and not as crowded as in other locations.  But it was more than that---it was the view (despite the haze), the live music you could hear at night, the sound of the waves lapping against the shore as you lay in bed, the gardens, the food, the shopping, the brick and cobblestone streets, and the beauty of nature all wrapped into one awesome package.