Saturday, 10th August
Leaving Padova at 29 degrees, a cool change but the
clothes were still sticking to us. Our bags full of peaches, plums, nectarines,
rolls, formaggio and salumi. The fresh fruit here has been the highlight and overall
the Hotel Grand’ Italia is great for location, comfort and breakfast.
We are glad to be on the move again especially as the word
that best describes us is not tourists or travellers but passengers.
Although we have left but the thinnest scratch on the
veneer of Italy we are done with the ancient and historical beauty. The Sant’ Anastasia in
Verona has won the prize for the most beautiful church we have seen in Italy –
even the 800 years old marble floors with each tile cut in the shape of a 3
leaf clover felt soft and cushioned to walk on.
The very fast Train to Milan was smooth and ran like
clockwork (with the Swiss Alps hovering on the horizon) – you really have got
to give it to Mussolini (and the Futurists) – the trains do run on time. And to
top it off the Milano Centrale Stazione Is a magnificent display of power in
Architecture (better than the Medici’s Pitti Palace) but it also has the weirdest mosaics – can someone
please explain the mural of a very muscular man with a huge wooden club and
perfectly volumed women on a raft with a dead moose?WTF?! – I wonder if the
artist responsible somehow was having a dig at “Il Duce”.
Then the Train from Milan to Como ran perfectly to
schedule and after an extremely quick taxi ride we were very happy to arrive
safely in Cernobbio (the taxi driver was obviously trying to beat the fixed
price he gave us). Nothing we have seen on TV has prepared us for the most
beautiful views of this enormous expanse of water nestled in the valleys of
enormous green mountains and the lovely breeze and the temperature was a very
reasonable 26 degrees. Ahhhh! At last we have arrived at a sedate quiet holiday
town. Maybe a little bit up market with houses and villas by the lake for a
lazy 5 million euro. And to top it all
off a very non-trashy market from the hotel down to the lake – still pumping now
at 11.10pm in the square below and the view of the lake from our hotel room
window is beautiful as the lights on the other side are reflected in the water.
This place could be the perfect holiday destination to
replace Airey’s inlet, especially for the fisherman or those who want to rub
shoulders with the famous as we hustle for prime view dinner tables. Mary is positive
a famous person/actor (probably plays a villain or snitch in a British Crime
series) was eating dinner at table behind us with another faintly familiar
exotic looking actress. Luckily, I was able to stop Mary from drawing attention
to us with her kookaburra impersonation. Tomorrow we will use the compass app Mary
bought for her phone to try to locate George Clooney who lives on the west side
of the lake.
After a perfect dinner which ended with free grappa and
limoncello digestives we enjoyed a truly relaxing evening stroll through the streets.
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