Varenna, Lake Como

Driving into Varenna is both beautiful and stressful. The road winds down to the village yet the scenery is truly magnificent. I had booked the cheapest room in the most lovely hotel in Varenna and we arrived to find that we had been upgraded to a lake view room with balcony. Thank you SO much to the Royal Hotel Victoria. https://www.royalvictoria.com/ (Did George and Amal put in a good word for us?) MoneyPenny rested up in the nearby public parking station. The pool at the hotel was great for cooling off at the end of the day and the fine dining option at the Visteria restaurant was an amazing experience. We also had great pizza and local food at other restaurants in town.

We purchased a day ticket on the ferries which allowed us to explore Menaggio and Bellagio. For 15 euros you can hop on and off the ferries within the triangle of main towns from Varenna all day. We did the historic walk in Menaggio and had lunch in Bellagio followed by a visit to the Villa Melzi gardens which was amazing.

Of course there was some time spent on MoneyPenny in the carpark fixing an issue with the headlights that turned out to be a loose connection. Luckily, our parking spot had plenty of space around it for unloading stuff and working on her. I also learned that Como was historically a silk weaving centre so I bought some scarves (and a dress and a handbag). I did think it was ironic that F (the man who buys Aston Martins) thought that I had too many scarves already. I bought them anyway. :) They weren't expensive and they are really pretty.

All in all, we found Lake Como to be a beautiful location to enjoy nature and the serenity of the lake. We were surprised that it wasn't as crowded as we had expected in August with most of the tourists being Europeans. This is a beautiful location which was on our bucket list and did not disappoint. If you are planning a trip to this part of the world we would recommend Varenna as a base. It is beautiful and small but lively and you can easily access most other locations by ferry.

Our next stop on this journey is Brescia