This morning had better weather than yesterday so we decided that we would
spend part of the day in Bellagio before heading to Milano. After breakfast
and packing, we went down to meet the crowds waiting for ferries; eventually
one for Bellagio came and the hordes alighted the boat. There was a woman with
a clicker to count how many people came onto the boat: I don't know whether she
stopped anyone, but the boat was packed solid with people. I should point out that I don't like crowds.
The ride to Bellagio was only about 15 minutes; when we disembarked, we discovered that all the world had decided to descend on Bellagio. Everywhere we went was crowded, a fact that very much diminished any enjoyment that I might have taken from Bellagio. Even without the crowds, I didn't see much that was very interesting. Many more shops than Menaggio, of course (and Menaggio had more shops than Varenna), but few were interesting.
After a poor lunch in a restaurant overlooking the lake (in retrospect, the lunch in Menaggio was better and cheaper), we queued for our return ferry. 15 minutes later we were back in Varenna; we went into our hotel, picked up the luggage and had a taxi ordered to take us to the train station.
At some points during the day there is a train once an hour from Varenna to Milano, whereas at other times, there is a train once every two hours. We of course arrived at the train station during the two hour gap, so we had plenty of time to wait. During that time the platform filled and overflowed with people. Eventually the train came and we all piled on; someone gave up their seat for my wife but I had to stand all the way for the 65 minute journey. It was very uncomfortable, not only because I was standing but also because the train was absolutely packed with no breathing room. Fortunately people got off during the ride, so the occupation rate was reduced to maybe 125% instead of 175%.
Once back in Milano Centrale, we made our way slowly to the taxi rank and
after only a brief wait were taken to our hotel which is quite some way from
the centre. Why pay more for a hotel in the centre when there is an efficient
metro system (this remains to be seen)? The hotel is modern, in complete
contrast to the Varenna hotel. We dragged ourselves out for food, and after a
false start in an osteria where we found nothing that we wanted to (or could)
eat on the menu, we crossed the road to a nice pizzeria. I had a pizza
tonno e cipolla whereas my wife had a margherita con acciughe.
We then staggered back to the hotel, very tired.
Cleaning up a few matters: when digging out the train tickets from my jacket pocket, I discovered that each ticket came with a double receipt: one for Milano to Varenna (which I saw) and one for Varenna to Milano (which I didn't see before). Each ticket was for 5.7€.
The first night in Varenna we ate in a restaurant next to the hotel; the second night the restaurant appeared to be closed, as was last night. In the hotel when we came back from Bellagio was one of the waitresses from that first night so I asked her what happened to the restaurant in the past two days (do they open only once a week?). Wednesday night there was service inside the restaurant, because of the bad weather, and Thursday night the restaurant is always closed. So that mystery was cleared up.
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 477 | Some MBA metadata | MBA, Project management, Finance | |
| 837 | Preparing for Florence | Holiday, Home movies, Florence, Italy | |
| 949 | Grandpa No'am | Personal, Grandfather | |
| 1214 | Diet (part two) | Health, Diet | |
| 1314 | A good weekend | DBA, Kindle, Grandfather, Covid-19 | |
| 1497 | ShoesOnLine (another pointless day-in-the-life-blog) | Shoes | |
| 1614 | Passports/2 | Israel, Erythritol |
No comments:
Post a Comment