La Dolce Vita – 2010 – Milan and Varenna/Lake Como – My Charmed Life

After a two hour layover in Atlanta, where we had some free wine and a snack in the Delta Club

we took off for Milan.We landed basically on time – we actually slept about 4-5 hours so good to go! In the Atlanta airport there were several pianists although not easy to hear, but for Katie I had to note this – this one was playing Fur Elise….

We took a bus to the Milan Train Station which is one of those gorgeous big European stations. Almost as pretty as churches!

Train to Varenna was about an hour and left exactly on time- much of it through Milan and suburbs but then suddenly we could see the Alps and then Lake Como, a very long lake that we traveled near with lots of tunnels until Varenna came in sight

first view of Lake Como from the south end

First view of Varenna

Varenna Train station

We walked about 1/2 mile to our hotel and checked in. The view of the Alps from our room was amazing even in the clouds and fog….

closeup of the alps – too bad it was foggy both days we were here…

Albergo Milano was a great place to stay – nice room, the owners – Egidio and Bettina were wonderful as was the rest of the staff. Here are a few pictures of the room.

Decided to go find some lunch and walked down to water level where we had seen a restaurant from our room. Here are a few views of the town and the restaurant.

street by our hotel – down the street there are tables set up for a small restaurant

This town was our introduction to steep, narrow streets with lots of stairs – that somehow always seem to be going up. Another feature we noticed, and we supposed for good drainage, is that the steps always slant down, making walking on them more difficult. Very old cobblestones too…