Last full day in Bellagio, what to do.....

It started off with some excitement, apparently the Top Gear team were around the Lake with a load of Ferraris. I quickly downloaded the twitter app and "followed" Jeremy Clarkson. He had just twitted that the sun coming up over Lake Como with the mist was one of the world's best sights. Oh yes, I promptly took a photo from the balcony and responded to his twitter, would he reply........... of course not he doesn't communicate with plebs...... but fun whilst it lasted.

Around Lake Como there are about 56 villas open to the public, in Bellagio there is Villa Melzi, this we wandered in the gardens yesterday. By far though one of the best is just across the Lake near Tremezzo called Villa Carlotta. It is so important it has it's own ferry stop, so we paid our €24 and set off.

It only takes 10 minutes but cruising across this fine lake in beautiful weather is worth the money. I found out after that John and I being "anziani" , yes folks ancient ones, we could have save €3, however we did only pay €5 each to get into the villa whereas Penny being a younger person had to pay €9.

It is a much nicer villa and has statues and whatnots which are very nice to look at make for a more interesting visit than the gardens alone. Having said that the grounds are a great deal better than yesterday, and as you will see very photogenic.

The villa was built at the end of the 17th century and became a popular stop on "The Grand Tour" with it's fine artworks and garden. In the late 1800's it was given as a wedding present to Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen and his new wife Carlotta, hence the name. (Guide books are so very useful....) He was a bit of a botanist and expanded the garden with fruits, exotic plants and even created his own rain forest. All in all an excellent effort Georg.

So tomorrow it's good bye to Bellagio, could be a book title that. We deliver John to Milan airport for his flight back to Dublin and then head off to Venice and some forecast rain.

Stay tuned.