CHAPTER 20 ITALY CONT.

The hotel has a good buffet breakfast in the dining room up one floor with an open air terrace lake view. We enjoy a restful morning, with only a walk to get a Herald Tribune. After a good trout lunch on the terrace, we ride a ferry up the lake to Varenna, with a stop at Menaggio. We get off at Varenna, walk along the shore in a very hot sun, eat an ice cream cone, and wait for the return ferry.

It’s another quiet day in beautiful Bellagio for us; we take clothes to the laundry, but they only do it by the piece and want to iron, so we stay dirty. We have lunch at the hotel, and after five go out for snack food, but all stores are closed, so we eat an omelet at the nearby Suisse Restaurant. It’s warm and hazy again as we sit and watch a rosy glow form as light fades over the lake.

The morning brings rain, after thunder and lightning most of the night. We reluctantly leave Bellagio by a narrow and twisting road to Como where there is heavy traffic and no visible parking spot as we drive thru. We have a little trouble finding the way, but get to the west side of Lake Maggiore where there’s a nice drive along, or just above, the water edge. We get a room at the Hotel Ghiffa at more than we want to pay, but we take it since it has a pretty terrace facing the lake. We see some hydrofoil boats and fishing boats with canopies.

On our last day in Italy we drive up the shore of Lake Maggiore, then turn around and go by back roads to the Torino freeway, and on it to the Torino airport. We check with Eurocar at the airport to see if we can trade our Italian car for a French one, but none is available so we will have to pay a drop off charge when we leave the car at the Paris airport. We did find a Herald Tribune there, so the stop proved worthwhile. We drive up twisting roads into France on the route to Briançon where we continue our ‘89 trip in SE France (#17).