I have to thank Ken for the title, explain later.
The day started like most, coffee and dolce in one of the water front bistros. Dolce are little sweet things, Penny's favourite is a a tart with large blackberrys on top, John and I prefer the the choux pastry fill with creme anglais. Lovely bubbly...... great tradition might import it to Bate Mountain.......
Having seen some of Lake Como we took a passenger ferry to the heart of it all, Como. There are two ferries, the slow boat to Como and the Servizio Rapido, the first takes two hours and the second one hour, so we choose the fast lane.
They seem to have three Rapido boats, a narrow cat, a plush looking larger ferry and the hydrofoil. We had the cat down to Como and the hydrofoil back the second was smoother and a little faster. On the way back we spotted George's house (Clooney that is) we waved but he wasn't home, we had thought about calling in for a Nespresso but no go.
Como is a much larger place than Bellagio but not as big I think as Lugarno the day before. There are lots of transport links from bendy buses to the Milano express train.
One of the things we had read about was the funicular railway to top of a nearby mountain, great views they said, what the didn't mention was all the trees so the views were really restricted to those from the railcar unless you walk an hour up the mountain to the lighthouse! We didn't.
We visited the Duomo Di Como, the cathedral, and imposing building with a magnificent dome as in a lot of major Italian churches. Dark inside and in the Roman tradition of side chapels all around.
There is a lot going on in Como, boats of all sizes coming and going and an active seaplane base. We have seen these flying up at Bellagio, in fact one just flew over as I am writing, so it must be a "trips around the lake in half and hour" type deal.
As always time for lunch outside and not to bad for Penny and I who had hamburgers, John was not to impressed with his beef baguette which consisted of just that, a piece of thinly sliced beef in a dry baguette, no salad ,butter of mayonnaise.
After the funicular trip it was time to head back on the hydrofoil, very smooth and quick.
Life in Bellagio seems to consist of eating and drinking, not back if you can keep up the pace. Just up the road, about 200m, there is a small pizzeria which was recommended as it seems the locals go there. There a few guys outside when we got there having a drink with the padroni . It's not a big place but pleasant. It's a one guy operation, he owns it, he's the waiter, the chef, the maitre'd and the admin.
We made the mistake of ordering antipasta, only two plates but the amount of food was huge and we were quite full. John and I had ordered pizza and Penny veal. We could hear the chap chopping away and banging the pizza dough around, Penny's salad arrived and there was enough for four, the veal was a nice size but my god the pizzas were enormous, bigger than Domino's family, they would have needed bigger dots on the box. John finished half his, I managed a half plus a slice but it finished me. On top of this there was the bottle and a half of local merlo that frothed when poured and the Sambucca Con Mosko, sambucca with flies. This is a drink that John knew about, white sambucca with coffee beans in it, the con moska means "with flies" cause that's what they look like in the dark. It also should be lit and come in shot glasses, it did light but instead of shot glasses we each had a small tumbler full. I made the 200m back to the apartment ok the blog would have been a step too far. Hence Ken's comment Como-tosed.
