Varenna, Italy (On Lake Como)

From the doldrums of Milan to the cool(er) shores of Lake Como we came to the little village of Varenna on the left "hip" of Lake Como. Apparently, if you look at Lake Como on a map, it looks like a man, with two legs and a body. Another town we went to, Bellagio, is the "testicles". George Clooney's house (ciao, it's George) is somewhere around the right knee.

Varenna was very sleepy and quiet, and we enjoyed the scenery and getting some exercise. Streets there were less something you drive on than walking directly uphill via stairs that served as passageways between homes leading down to the water.

The view of Varenna from the top of the hill above it

Ferries taking cars and people from town to town on the lake - We spent a lovely afternoon riding the boat from town to town (Menaggio and Belaggio). When we got too lazy to actually get of, we just rode it around and enjoyed being out on the water.

Sunset over the lake

Monastery Gardens overlooking the Lake
Used to be a Cistercian convent, later a private villa on the lake

Another view from the Monastery Garden - it was a little overcast most of the time we were there, I think this is the one of the only pictures we got where you can actually see how beautifully blue the water was.

One night we decided we should suck it up and try the local cuisine - Lake Fish, of course. This little guy was a "lake herring" served with polenta and actually quite tasty, if a little boney. We also sampled a mixed grill of all different lake fish (the yummiest was trout, sorry, no pictures, it was dark and we were hungry) When we complimented our waiter on how good everything was, he told us how he and the chef actually went out every night after closing to go spearfishing for one of the fish we ate that night. He got pretty excited and came back out a few minutes later with a picture of a huge fish he had personally speared recently.

Last but not least, one of us. Okay, a little dark and blurry, but we're proud of it. We took this one of ourselves by hanging the camera on a nail at the top of the Castle. Did I say Castle? That's a whole different story.