Monday – 2nd Week: Menaggio to Tremezzo

Today’s walk is between three small villages on the western side of Lake Como from Menaggio to Tremezzo. Anne and I visited Lake Como in 1994 and had a very memorable lunch in a terraced restaurant in one of the small towns on the shores of the lake. The only problem is, we can’t remember which small town – I’m certain it was on the eastern side of the lake and Anne is positive that it was in Cadenabbia, which is one of the towns we’re walking to today, so it’s become a bit of a point of competition. We caught the boat from Bellagio to Menaggio, which is one of Anne’s hot picks for the spot of our historic lunch – along with Cadenabbia, the next town to Menaggio on Lake Como.

Unfortunately for me, the ferry from Bellagio to Menaggio went via Varenna, which in addition to being the site of one of our alternate locations for an apartment, is also one of my hot picks for where we could have had lunch in 1994. While Varenna, looked to be another very pretty little town, there was nothing about it that suggested that it contained the location of our special restaurant from 1994, this despite the boat going past the entire town before it docked.

Fortunately for me, when we arrived at Menaggio there was nothing that suggested that it was the location of our lunch either. We disembarked from the boat and went for a walk around the town. It really is a very beautiful town, which Anne and I explored thoroughly before heading on our walk to Cadenabbia and Tremezzo. The walk involved walking through more narrow windy roads that were never designed for pedestrians, but we were becoming quite adept at negotiating the traffic now. Before heading out of town on our walk, we stopped in the piazza for a cappuccino.

For lunch we stopped in Tremezzo for Brescaola, rocket, olive oil and parmesan cheese, followed by Pizza – all washed down with a bottle of wine, whilst overlooking the lake. After lunch we walked back to Cadenabbia to go for a walk around the historical town centre. This was a bit of a con, as it turned out after we’d followed all the signs to the town centre, that it was just one building at the top of the hill. When we reached to top of the town, the clouds had started to gather and an electrical storm started. We caught the ferry back from Cadenabbia to Menaggio, by which time it was pouring with rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning.

As today is Monday, most of the shops are closed and town was quiet, so we headed off to a restaurant for dinner.