Trip to Italy
Mike and Judy Henderson
September 16 to October 2, 2015
9/25/2015 We headed out into Milan on our own today, armed by Alice with a list of places to visit. Milan has a very good Metro system so we were able to get around the city very easily on our own. You can buy an all day ticket which allows you to ride any subway or bus during the 24 hours of the card. I think they offer two and three day cards, also.
A metro train under the railway station.
Alice encouraged us to see Da Vinci's Last Supper fresco in the Santa Maria Delle Grazie refectory. Tickets are ordinarily very difficult to get and usually have to be purchased months in advance. A ticket is good for a specific time of day, with each group being allowed 15 minutes in the refectory. Alice pointed out that cancellations often occur and it may be possible to purchase a ticket if we were flexible on the time. So we first headed to the ticket office to check availability. Lo and behold, there was an opening at 6:15pm.
An earlier quote had been €20 per person, but these tickets were only €6.50 each. The €20 tickets included a guide who would talk during the viewing, but there were so many interpretive displays in the outer courtyard areas that we felt sufficiently informed to fully enjoy the fresco.
The refectory is attached to this church.
After getting our tickets we walked to the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio. This is an interesting church because of the large courtyard in front of the entrance.
Next we walked to the Basilica di San Lorenzo. Its octagonal shape is unusual for a western Christian church. This view of the dome shows the eight sides.
A view of the altar area.
And a panoramic view of the interior.
We next walked by the Basilica di Sant'Eustorgio but it was closed, so we continued to the canal area of Milan.
Lunch time meant it was time for us to walk to a restaurant recommended by Alice, the Osteria Conchetta.
It was definitely a "local" place - and packed. We had a risotto dish which included beans - I felt almost like I was having New Orleans red beans and rice.
And here's a beautiful woman outside the restaurant.
Milan is a center of business and fashion, and this new area reflects the development and vibrancy of the city, with very high-end accommodations.
An interesting building is this one, with shrubbery growing on all the patios.
And a close-up.
It was now time to see the "Last Supper" fresco. Visitors are admitted as a group, going through two temperature and humidity controlled holding rooms first, and you get to spend exactly 15 minutes in the refectory. While it's nice to see this historical treasure in person, an in-depth study might be better accomplished by studying detailed photographs. You can't get closer than about 15 feet from the fresco, and a good view involves trying to see around the heads of the others in your group. It becomes a "been there, done that" experience.
Photographs were not allowed, even without flash, but here's a picture of a picture of the fresco, displayed in the outer area.
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9/26/2015 Today, we head to Lake Como. At Linate Airport we picked up our Hertz rental car and our friends Diana and Jim, who flew in from Rome. Here we are later that evening, having dinner in Lake Como. Jim and Diana are friends from Philadelphia. It was their suggestion to visit Lake Como together, and that was the genesis of our entire trip.
The trip to Lezzeno (to our hotel, the Nest on the Lake) was an experience. Driving to Como (at the southern tip of Lake Como) was not bad, but once we got on the road up to Lezzeno, it got interesting. The road is very narrow, barely wide enough for two cars. In fact, some of it is not wide enough for two cars, and one of them has to pull over to let the other get by. Here's a picture I took as we were leaving, but it illustrates the road. You just can't get a car in that space on the side of the bus. Scrapes on side mirrors are common. By the way, Judy did an admirable job of driving, and I did the navigating, with Google maps on my iPhone. It worked great. We made a few wrong turns leaving Milan, but I was able to navigate us back to the proper route fairly quickly.
And to make matters worse, people walk along the road since there's no place else to walk - even at night. I wonder how many pedestrians get hit each year.
We soon realized that taking a car to Lake Como was a mistake. In addition to the narrow roads, there's very limited parking. Public transportation, both boats and buses, are pretty good and not very expensive. We parked the car when we got to the hotel and didn't use it again until we left.
You can take a train from Milan to either Como or Varenna, then a boat to Lezzeno. Either is a much better solution than a car.
A few words about Lake Como. The lake was formed by glacier action and is quite deep. It also means that the sides of the lake are steep. The houses and towns along the lake are built into the sides of the hills, meaning lots of stair-climbing to get from the water to the center of most towns. The people who live there must be in great physical shape.
We arrived at our hotel, "Nest on the Lake", and were parked and checked in. Here's a panoramic view of the lake from our hotel room.
The hotel -The Nest on the Lake - is located between the road and the lake.
The front of the building as seen from the road.
It consists of the two buildings shown here.
And here's Constantino, the proprietor of Nest on the Lake. The property has been in his family for five generations. He has recently had it completely redone to accommodate his family in addition to creating seven guest rooms (three are two-room suites that include a kitchen, and four are bedroom/bathroom combinations). It's a lovely B & B with very high ratings and many repeat clients. He goes out of his way to be accommodating, including giving you a ride to a nearby restaurant (and pick-up after dinner) if you aren't up to walking along the road.
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9/27/2015 Jim and Diana had some friends coming by to see them, and we joined in. After socializing at the hotel, we went to lunch at a local restaurant that was only 250 meters from the hotel.
After a good afternoon of visiting they left, and we four went to dinner and turned in for the night.
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9/28/2015 Today we started exploring the Lake Como area. We took the boat at Lezzeno to Varenna and Bellagio.
Boat transport is convenient and not too expensive. There are three kinds of boats. The first is the "local" boat that stops at most of the towns and is of modest speed. You can purchase a mid-lake day pass for these boats if your plans include only that area. There are plenty of places to see in that area alone. If you're 65 or older, remember to ask for the senior discount.
The next is the "high speed" boat that costs a bit more and generally does not go to all the towns. No day pass for this one.
Finally, there is the car ferry that transports cars across the lake.
We went to Varenna first. Varenna is fairly small and the main part of the town is up on the hillside. While this picture does not really show the height and the steepness of the steps, there were a lot of steps to climb.
The main square of Varenna.
There's a sign just above the white car on the right of the above photo. Here's a close up.
In German, a W is pronounced like a V and a V is pronounced like a W. Translation can be difficult, but charming.
Here's a view of the church on the square.
We met Jim and Diana for lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the lake. It was a little too windy to sit on the outer patio.
Judy at the restaurant.
Next we went to Bellagio. I suppose they named the town after the casino in Las Vegas, but I couldn't find any dancing fountains :-) There were some floating swans, though.
We walked the streets of Bellagio. It's another town that is built on the side of a hill so getting to the upper levels requires a lot of stair-climbing. It's very much a shopping town, but beautiful.
Here's Jim, Diana, and Judy just after we arrived in Bellagio. Yes, there are many tourists.
We visited a Romanesque church in the upper area of Bellagio that had been built in the eleventh century. It's amazing to reflect on the culture existing there so many years ago.
Continuing our walk, we found this street that particularly resonated with Judy. We later learned that it was here that Raffaella, the wife of our host at "The Nest", had grown up.
Bellagio is a wealthy tourist town, and this is one of the shopping areas.
Eventually, we took the boat back to the Nest and had dinner with our friends.
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9/29/2015 We decided to take the boat to Como today. Como is an old town, having been founded by Julius Caesar in 59BC during the Gallic wars. One notable person who was born in Como was Alessandro Volta, who gave his name to the unit of electricity now known as the volt.
We didn't arrive until about noon so we stopped at a cafe and shared a pizza.
We walked the city and saw the old Roman wall.
The top floor of a department store offered a lovely view of the city. The Duomo was not far away.
You can see how the city is built along the hillside.
Then we visited the Duomo,
And the inside.
We returned to Lezzeno on the high speed boat.
That evening we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the lake.
We invited Constantino to join us for dinner and he chose a very good restaurant in Bellagio.
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9/30/2015 Today we decided to visit some of the old villas on the lake. We first went to Villa del Balbianello, which is almost directly across the lake from Lezzeno. But when we got there, we found it was closed on Mondays and Wednesdays - and this was Wednesday.
So we took the boat to our next choice, Villa Carlotta.
Here we are in front of the villa.
It's quite a place, filled with art and sculpture, and used to be on the "Grand Tour" that wealthy, educated Europeans used to take after they completed their university studies.
A very extensive garden around the Villa was created by one of the owners in the past century. We walked through the garden, up and down the hillside, but it was fall and the foliage was not in bloom. This view is of the front fountain and garden from an upper floor of the villa. An interesting note from history: it was in front of this Villa that Mussolini was captured in 1945.
After our visit to Villa Carlotta, we went to Varenna to do some shopping, and had lunch on the upper square.
That evening we had our "Last Supper" with our friends, Jim and Diana, at a restaurant close to the Nest.
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10/1/2015 Today we departed Lake Como and headed to a hotel near the Milan airport for our last night. Our morning flight was early, so we couldn't drive from Lake Como in time.
Judy did the driving and I did the navigating. The road was just as narrow as when we drove up, but now we knew what to expect so it wasn't as difficult. But there were some tight squeezes. Yes, believe it or not, a car will fit between the truck and the wall.
We had chosen the Hotel Maxim, near the airport, and it was an unusual hotel. I made the choice based on reviews on TripAdvisor but no one had given any details about the hotel.
You can think of it as the ultimate "Motel", catering to people who arrive in a car. Here's the entrance. One gate is to enter and the other is to depart.
You can check-in at a drive up window. Not knowing that, we parked outside and walked inside.
Its a long, single-story hotel. You enter your room from the center hall, but each room has a back door to the outside, and that "outside" is covered parking for that room. It was like having a private cabana for each car.
Here's our car in our parking space. The drop curtain operates with a button just outside the door. You can see a few lowered curtains in the above picture.
It was unusual, but very practical. A first, for us.
We went to a late lunch at a local restaurant. And by "local" I mean "local". This was our first experience with real communication difficulty. But it was a nice restaurant, and it even had a full selection of "burgers". It was a sign that we were on our way home.
Later, we shared a bottle of wine in the hotel and then went to bed.
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10/2/2015 Travel day today. We woke up early and got to Milan's Linate airport in plenty of time to turn in the car. Here's Judy having a cappuccino and croissant before we go to the gate.
The flight from Milan to Dusseldorf was uneventful and not crowded. We had about a three hour layover in Dusseldorf which we spent in the Air Berlin lounge. The flight to LAX was long - about 11 hours - but uneventful and arrived on time. Here are a couple of airplane pictures.
The baggage carousel at LAX was jammed with luggage from a previous flight, and ours was delayed. It must have been a big plane. This is what happens to baggage in an airport.
One problem is that passengers have to clear immigration before collecting luggage, and those long lines delay them in claiming bags. The guys working the luggage area were doing their best to take bags off and put them on the floor, but it became an avalanche.
We have Global Entry which allows you quick passage through customs and immigration, so we got down to baggage very quickly.
Our driver was waiting for us and helped us with the luggage. Rush hour traffic was our last challenge, but we were happy to be home.
10/3/2015 All that's left is to pick up Skipper and Bernie. Not much to show for Bernie because he was in a cat carrier. But here's Skipper. He had just had a bath and was still wet. He was excited and glad to see us, and we were glad to see him.
And that was the end of our trip to Italy. I want to give high credit to the people of Italy. They were invariably pleasant, friendly and helpful. While you might expect this at a hotel or restaurant, we found that interactions with people in other situations were the same. For example, when we went to fuel up our rental car, I couldn't figure out how to pay at the pump. One of the women from the service station came out and walked me through it and was very pleasant in the process.
We have another trip scheduled in January - to Cuba and New Orleans. I hope you'll go along with us through our blog.
Mike and Judy Henderson
You can go to our travel site by clicking here.