Petersontravels

The Villa del Balbianello is one of the top highlights of Lake Como, at least to me.  This famous spot is home to an incredible villa and spectacular gardens, which is why it’s captured the eye of Hollywood movie makers.

Super crappy Star Wars movie dialogue!

“I don’t like sand…”  OMFG, that is so ridiculously god awful!!  Somebody actually wrote that line, and then somebody else said “yeah, that’s good”, and then the Director said, “cut, excellent…let’s move on to the Wookie sex scene”…and then the Editor, the last bastion of common decency, decided, “fuck it, let it ride”.  A complete failure of movie making in one scene!

Bond movie we have yet to see.

Regardless of the Hollywood appeal, it’s a very cool spot to visit, and the villa has some amazing history.  This is well worth the visit and the cost (I think it was 22 euros each). The place has a long history dating back to the late 1700’s, but the most recent restoration was by the Milanese businessman Guido Monzino, who turned it into his own private museum.

The first spot you stop is the Loggia, which offers the best views of the lake from both sides (until some trees grew too tall on the south side).

Here is the view to the north, which features the spot where the unforgiveably terrible lines were spoken in Star Wars.  Padme talks about swimming to an island, which is just special effects, as seen by the below photo.  The only island on the lake is in the opposite direction.  Perhaps if she had drowned trying to find the island we wouldn’t have had to watch that scene?

Another view from the Loggia.

A closer view of the intracately trimmed bushes growing along the Loggia walls.

It has two enclosed structures which featured a music room (now the map room) and the library, still fully stocked with the last owners books.

Inside the villa are hundreds of artifacts from Monzino’s adventures.  He went all over the world, visiting the North Pole twice, and attempted Everest, but a heart condition kept him at base camp.  Below is an actual sled he used to reach the North Pole.

He built special display cases to show off his collection.

The display cases literally filled the entire house.  Looks like he did a bit of Celestial Navigation as well.

This really intricate clock was used to time the bells in the church on the property.  It was in a state of disrepair when the National Trust for Italy took over the property, so they had Rolex come in to fix it, which likely cost $3.5 trillion, which is basically zero accoriding to the Presidential math teacher!

After the villa tour you visit the lower gardens on your own.  Kim was yelling something like “I don’t like sand…”.  Something like that.  I couldn’t make it out over the guy screaming at me to get off the grass in Italian.  “Getta offa tha grassa”…yeah, that was it.

There were two groups here taking photos for their wedding.  I tried to get into as many of them as possible…mostly to make the bride and groom look good, and trust me, one bride needed the help!  Woof!  There were also some Instagrammer douches…always fun to photobomb them!  Still, this is a great spot for some awesome photos!

Guido Monzino’s last wish was to be buried on the estate.  He died in 1988.  I wish his last wish was to never let a Star Wars movie be filmed here!  Here is his crypt.

One last look at the Loggia on the way out.

On the way back to Bellagio we got off the ferry a stop early so we could do some walking.  We came across this statue outside a restaurant.  One of the best statues we’ve seen on the trip!

We ran across this testament to John F. Kennedy, with no explanation for why it was here.  Very strange.  Maybe he visited Bellagio when he was President?

A beautiful shot of Bellagio.

One last sunset from the balcony.

We are off to Piemonte next!

 

The drive from Vaduz, Liechtenstein to Lake Como was supposed to be 2.75 hours.  It ended up being more like 3.5 hours, mostly due to traffic, but also due to complete white-out weather over a mountain pass, where traffic slowed to a complete crawl.  We entered a tunnel in full sun, and 5km later it was zero sun ($3.5 trillion sun, to be exact).

That crawl turned into bumper to bumper barely moving traffic at the border into Italy, right on the edge of Lake Como.  Man do I miss bumper to bumper traffic!!

I don’t know if it was because we were travelling on a Saturday or if it’s like this all the time, but the border crossing from Switzerland just outside Como was awful, and there was no reason for it other than they took several lanes of traffic and diverted it into one….but there was NOBODY at the border monitoring anything.  Is this where the US is getting their border advice?

We turned in our rental car at the train station in Como, and walked to the ferry dock.  I’ve gotta say, the city of Como itself is shady and ugly, at least until you hit the waterfront.  The area from the train station to the waterfront is a shithole, with several homeless folks and one example of public urination right in front of us.  That took care of any plans to visit this spot during our stay.  Definitely DO NOT stay here!

We caught a ferry just as it was about to leave.  Keep in mind that you can buy your ticket on board the ferries.  It will cost you an extra euro, but if you are about to miss a ferry because of a line at the dock then this is a good option.  Below is one of the many ferry docks around the lake.

Beautiful villas and churches are everywhere!

Here is Bellagio, our home for the next 4 days, from the ferry.

We are staying right above the ferry dock, at the Hotel Du Lac.  Here is the view from our balcony.

If you choose to stay here, book well in advance, particularly if you want one of the 4 rooms that have an actual balcony facing the water.  That’s the ferry dock below, you can’t get any closer.

Bellagio is a cute little town to walk around in, with a lot of narrow streets curving up the hills.  I highly recommend this as your home base for visiting the other parts of the lake.

We visited the little village of Varenna on our first day,  and it’s a very quiet and beautiful spot, with several botanical gardens along the water.  Below is our approach to the ferry dock.

The walk to the gardens is along the waterfront.

The below photos are from the two botanical gardens of Villa Cipressi and Villa Monastero.

This is such an excellent spot for taking photos!

The next day we visited Menaggio and walked along the waterfront, but there was construction going on and it wasn’t the most pleasant walk.  We had planned to take the ferry all the way north to Colico, but the ferry I targeted only runs on Sundays and Holidays.  Check the schedule closely!  We ended up visiting Nesso instead, which has a beautiful waterfall, and nothing else.  We barely saw it from the ferry on our first day, and wanted to check it out.

Here is a better look.

We hiked up above it, and there were a few other waterfalls to see, but no better view of the main falls.

The little bridge you can view the falls from is very photogenic.  No sign of Instagrammers, but I’m sure they are around!

You can see this little bridge from the top looking down.

My suggestion is be prepared to take a picture of the waterfall from the ferry as you approach Nesso from Como…it’s barely worth the special stop, as the place is really run down, and rather depressing to see.  Great waterfall though!

The most famous hotel in Bellagio is the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni.  We had dinner at one of their restaurants, La Goletta, and it was excellent.  They have a beautiful spot right on the lake.

I had to take a picture of this Major Douche in the restaurant.  Somebody is overcompensating for something!

Speaking of Major Douches, here is Gavin Newsom working in a restaurant near our hotel!  Nice shirt Gavin!

During sunset we started chatting with our balcony neighbors, Cam and Caroline.

Cam and Caroline are both American teachers in Madrid.  Very cool couple!

Later that night, after dinner, we saw this church all lit up in red.

This is Columbus Day in the US.  Cooincidence?  Later that night we chatted (and shared wine with) Cam and Caroline for about two hours.  Thanks for sharing the Barbera D’Alba Cam!

During this chat I saw that numerous other churches around the lake were lit up in red.  WTF?  Hopefully we can figure it out.  Cam is a history teacher…I’m counting on him to get the info!

Next up, we visit Villa del Balbianello, which needs it’s own post.