Milan

I had read about the lakes district in northern Italy and thought it would be neat to see Lake Como.  The closest town with a Hilton (we have to stay at Hilton hotels!) was in Milan.  We arrived in Milan after dark and realized it was not a particularly nice place.  In fact it was downright scary!  I was glad we could park our car directly outside the hotel and ske-dad-dle in there mighty fast. 

The following morning we high-tailed the Citroen Picasso out of Milan and were in Como, Italy within 30 minutes.  And Como has a McDonald's (perfect 'special' spot for lunch).   This is B-Real making that face like 'I must really love you to be eating at McD's again while we are in freaking Italy'. 

Como is on the southern most point of Lake Como and is a cute town with lots of restaurants, shopping, and water based activities.  We knew we wanted to get out on that big lake and were trying to figure out the best way to do it.  I met some English speaking girls in line for the ferry and asked about their plans. They were going to take the ferry to Bellagio and hang out there for a while.  B-Real and I decided this would be our plan too.

Neither B-Real nor I realized the size of Lake Como.  It is one of the largest and deepest lakes in all of Europe.  The northern most part of the lake is actually in Switzerland.  Actor George Clooney has a home on the lake and B-Real was able to point it out to me thanks to his Google research as we ferried! It's the yellow one, right down on the water in the middle of the photo, mom. My mom has th hots for George.  Como takes a lot of pride in the fact that he owns a residence in their town.  We read that many of the stores showcase his photo in the picture frames they sell!  

Bellagio was very pretty!  Lots of steep hills as you got away from the lake with charming stores.  We stopped and got gelato (aka Italian ice).  I have a problem with Luigi's Italian ice from the grocery store at home.  It's only three points on Weight Watchers but takes about an hour to eat, especially if it's frozen solid.  It's good choice for TV nights.  Anyhow, I got a cone and Brent got a small scoop of the lemon gelato.  We thoroughly enjoyed our gelatos and realized that we really needed more.  We went back and I got the LARGE cup and he B-Real got a granita.  I'd never had one of those before and it was really good! 

Wanting to get more time on the lake we choose the slow ferry boat ride back to Como with multiple small town stops.  It took about 2 1/2 hours to get home versus forty to get to Bellagio.  We sat on the top deck and just took it all in -- we observed quite a few people had the same idea as us.  Many people had even brought bottles of wine with them to share.   It was so relaxing and peaceful. The weather in the lakes district was cooler than along the coast; which was a nice reprieve from the heat and humidity on the Med.