So, we put up with a few days of rain earlier this week. But it turns out to be well worth it. Wednesday we woke up to blue skies and sunshine. Went to the gardens at Villa Carlotta, up the road from us about fifteen minutes. The autumn colors of the trees was breathtaking. They have every type of tree you can imagine, and many are 200 years old. The bamboo garden is also impressive. There are 150 varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, which we only saw pictures of in bloom. It's hard to imagne what this place will look like in the spring with all of them in bloom.
Went to Mennagio afterwards to walk around. Most everything is buttoned up but there are still a number of shops open. Sat down at an outside table and ordered a couple of paninis. Donnas was toasted with buffalo mozzerella and tomatoes. Mine was not, and had one thin slice of proscuitto, with nothing else. (We brought mine home and modified it for dinner.)
The television in the house gets only english channels, and with the exception of CNN, they're all british. About a third are kids channels, and the rest are a mix of BBC and other locals channels from the Midlands. One of our guilty pleasures has been watching a show on BBC4 called Four in a Bed. You take four B&B owners, have them go to each others B&B's and critique them on cleanliness, breakfast, mattress comforts, etc. The winner wins a thousand pounds and it gets funnier the more they go on.
It's easy to see why this is sucha a popular place. you've got this beautiful gorge of a lake surrounded by towering hills, surrounded by the Alps to the north. Took the ferry to Varenna from Menagio. Not much happening there, couldn't find a place to eat! So, came back to Menagio and sat in the sunshine for a couple of hours. Must have been seventy degrees in the sun. Watched the old men fishing from the boardwalk, a young guy feeding the swans, had a gelato and headed home. Today we're heading for Emiglio Romana for a three night stay. Hitting Parma, Modena, and Bologna for some good food.
Thought they're called highways here, the roads around the lake are TIGHT. Often times you need to back up to let another through. Thankfully, there's no light industry or fast food places anywhere. It's all local and on a small scale. Driving through the towns you can see the chunks out of the corners of the buildings where drivers have miscalculated. The house are all stone or stucco, many perched on hillsides that make you wonder how they were built. We've yet to see a rambler..............
No comments:
Post a Comment