Days 4 & 5

Day 4 – Wednesday, continues…We make plans to go to a small little town on the lake called Venare. Seems quaint, and there is a river that seems to start and stop without any source, so we wanted to check it out. We decide not to take the boat, for a 2 hour boat ride, but instead take the bus for a 1 hour ride. The plan was to take the bus to Tremezza and then a boat to Venara.


I was hoping to see more of the countryside on the drive, but was sort of taken up in the fact that these 2 lane roads are accommodating this much traffic. If you could have seen the giant trucks, buses, and other over sized vehicle making the turns to get through, you would have died. The bus driver was constantly honking his horn to alert people around the corner that he was there. This brought us to a major snare on the road. We came to a dead stop for about 20 minutes, while a truck was trying to clear a wall, and a parked car. After much effort, and someone getting out and directing traffic, we finally cleared the rest of the path, which took us about 15 more minutes.
When we got off the bus, we realized that we should have gone a bit farther, in order to take the boat to Venare. So, we decided to just stay there, eat lunch, and take the bus back. While eating lunch, we met a lovely Irish couple that were on their last day of their vacation. They loved the lake, and had a wonderful experience. We chatted about the fact that it only takes them 2 hours to get here from their home, can you imagine? We loved talking to them with their charming Irish accents.

One thing that I didn’t anticipate is that lunch (caprese salad) with wine, combined with a long bus ride back makes for a very uncomfortable ride home. I really thought I was going to be sick. I felt just awful. Finally, I made Jeff get off about 10 minutes before we should have, and we just walked the rest of the way back. I guess I had more wine than I realized. But I had a great nap when we got back. Late dinner again, but I didn’t eat. Surprise!
Day 5-Thursday. Made arrangements to meet the couple we met in Bellagio on Tuesday. They were going to take the boat to Como, but we decided to go up to their little town instead. We were going to take the train from Como to Lecco, then train to Venare. But we found out this would most likely take us more time than less, so we took the hydrofoil to the town that they were staying , Menaggio. It took us about 1 hour, compared to 2 hours on the other one! The plan was to take the boat to Venare and have lunch there. Well, plans never seem to work out the way they should, and we’ll probably never get to see Venare. Had a wonderful lunch with Ryan and Des, and then went to another pub for a splash of wine (splash, literally, since I didn’t want a repeat of last night!) Took the speed boat back to Como. All in all, a lovely day. I think we’ll have an early dinner so we can go to bed early. I need sleep!!