Wednesday – 2nd Week: Varenna

Last nights electrical storm did not have the same effect as the previous nights, so they day has dawned overcast and murky. We had planned to go on a lake trip to Como today – it’s two hours by slow boat – and the views would be spectacular, if the trip in by road was anything to go by. However, with the weather the way it is, we decided to go to Varenna today and do the day trip to Como on Thursday – provided the weather is better.

Varenna is on the eastern side of Lake Como, a short ferry ride away. Well it is a short ferry ride if you go direct, but we never seem to. When we wanted to go to Menaggio, a short ferry ride to the west, we went via Varenna, and now to complete the set we’ve headed off to Varenna via Menaggio. The ferries are fun and if you only want to go around the centre of the lake, they’re very frequent. The car ferries in particular are fun – you feel like you’re in one of those communist spy swaps, as passengers getting off the ferry (via the car ramp) swap with the passengers getting onto the ferry. On the straight passenger ferries, there’s just a gangway, so passengers are let off first, which doesn’t create anything like the same effect.

Varenna is a pretty little town that used to make its living from fishing. The amazing thing about Lake Como is the amount of fish life in the lake. Where ever we walk we see dozens of trout and always thousands of minnows swimming in the shallows at the edge of the lake. The streets of Varenna are very steep, in fact there’s a road along the top of the town and the rest of it is walkways and very steep steps.

Villa Monastero is just a short walk out of town and has beautiful gardens that are terraced up from the lake. I’ve just read that the villa was once a not-so-spartan monastery that was dissolved in the late 17th century when the nuns in residence began bearing living proof that they were on too-friendly terms with the priests across the way. I mean to say, what was the world coming to if you couldn’t trust a 17th century nun to stick to her vows.

Anyway, we looked out over the gardens as we went on a walk to the next little town and then walked back.

For dinner we went to Ristorante Bilacus, which we have our suspicions may have been the restaurant we were looking for in Varenna and other points on the lake. I had a very simple, but superb meal of spaghetti with Tomato Sauce, followed by beef with a green pepper sauce. Anne had a mixed fish entrée – sword fish, salmon and tuna – followed by saltimbocca – escalope’s of veal with Parma ham and sage. We ordered a bottle of the Nobile di Montepulciano which was wonderful. We finished up with a Tiramisu. It was a fabulous meal – our best yet.