Italy Uno: Como and Tuscany

I’ll be spending about two weeks in Italy, so stay tuned for another couple of these. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve decided to add maps to the start of each post (both previously published and moving forward).

The transition from Italian Switzerland to northern Italy was invisible, save for a European Union sign subtly announcing Italy. While I appreciate that the E.U. countries do well to brand themselves as part of the union, I am shocked that there’s not more branding at the border crossings. I’ve not only seen U.S. states with more of an announcement, but both cities and small towns exhibit more pride in their signs than the countries. While I didn’t tire of the mountains, the drive in Italy changed and got extra special at Lake Lugano. I took this photo from a gas station on the side of the road that descends along Lugano. A gas station!

I headed east along this lake to the next: Como. I had no preconceived idea of where specifically to stay on Lake Como, so I just went with an affordable and well rated hostel on the west side of the lake in the town of Menaggio. I actually didn’t even realize it wasn’t in Como proper until I got there. Sometimes good marketing is what you don’t say. A few switchbacks later, I parked and checked in, and was greeted by the unbeatable view from my 8-bed dorm room. A complete steal for about $25/night!

I went for a long stroll along the lake.

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I noticed what looked like a castle a couple of towns up, so I walked a few miles further. I passed through a number of tunnels, separated from the road and dedicated for bikes and pedestrians. I also passed what I discerned was a wastewater treatment plant. Once I got to the ‘castle’ I realized it was a grandiose residence. There were two young women outside the gate, and one jumped it. I was excited about witnessing (and perhaps participating in) some breaking and entering. I was disappointed to learn that they lived in the adjacent building, and were locked out. I asked to come in and take photos, they argued in Italian for a moment, and the fence jumper convinced her friend to let me in for a quick snap. I was given permission to enter “ten meters,” but didn’t use them all.

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The sun was setting and I was going to miss it due to the mountains along the west coast of Como. Rather than resign myself to the same fate that befell my sunset hoping eyes in Interlaken, I hopped in my car and headed back to Lugano. Not the best sunset ever, but worth the 20-minute drive.

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Back in my room, sitting on my bed to rest my legs and trying to find out what to do that evening, the door opens, and I introduce myself to the guy who walks in. He shouts and gives me a hug as I realize it’s Merlin. No you silly goose, not the wizard! The Belgian guy from Interlaken! Turns out, he and Natalie, one of the three Australians, left for Como the morning after I arrived in Interlaken. They didn’t have plans to travel together but discussed a few different options of hostel and both wound up in Menaggio too, and spent the last 2 days on the lake. After freshening up we went down to the common space and chatted over a bottle of prosecco. They both intended to check out of the hostel the following day but didn’t know where they were going. I offered a ride to my next spot, Genoa, and they were both sold. Merlin had no plan whatsoever and Natalie wanted to get to Barolo, a picturesque wine town, closer to Genoa than Menaggio.

My new compadres were excited for the road trip, having been subject to buses and trains on their travels up until then. We stopped in Milan for lunch. Do you remember what I said about Strasbourg? That people seemed more stylish? Well, multiply it by 10 and add another arbitrary number and that was Milan. Everyone was fit, put together, and trendy beyond belief. Even the schlubs and the homeless seemed chic (perhaps it was peer pressure, perhaps hand me downs are all stylin here). Architecturally there were sharp looking neoclassical Greek and Roman beauties too.

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In Milan we really only grabbed a truly wonderful lunch, walked through a park, and scoped out the Golden Triangle (shopping mecca) on the way to the Duomo and back. I did some window shopping, but wasn’t in the mood to buy anything.

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I picked Genoa as a well-situated spot to stop en route to Rome while limiting the length of my drives to less than three hours daily. I had done some research on the sights, nothing profound, but the cemetery just north of the city rated on a few lists. It being on our route, that was our first stop in Genoa. It was interesting, and the most impressive cemetery of my trip. I swear haven’t deliberately mean to make a habit out of visiting these, and don’t have a thing for cemeteries. Or maybe I do, I have consistently found them interesting. Beyond those that I have a family connection to, each culture treats their deceased differently, and some of these are in a glorious locale (i.e. Lauterbrunnen), while this one was utterly over the top.

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Our hostel was on the third floor of an apartment building. The three of us checked into a five person room (with two Russian women we didn’t talk to much) and regrouped for dinner. Other than that, we had a pretty quiet night, mostly discussing what we were going to next. Merlin wound up taking a bus that next morning, heading back to Balmer’s in Interlaken while looking for work. Natalie and I checked off the rest of my Genoa bucket list the next morning, which included a row of palaces: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli. They were beautiful, but I imagined something “more palatial” based on what I had read.

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We also headed down to the more modern waterfront. There were lots of foreigners selling cheap wares or trying to put bracelets on us here. It was somewhat dirty, and the sights, including a fake pirate ship, aquarium, bio dome, and elevator, didn’t impress us. Walking back toward the hostel and my car, we saw the duomo among some other neat buildings in the city.

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I wasn’t blown away with what I had read about in Genoa, and I wasn’t hungry at the moment, so I skipped the last thing on my list, Genoa’s fishing village. It was time to get on the road to Tuscany. My appetite picked up a little and I saw the sun shining on a lake in the distance. So I pulled off to the small town of Chiavari. I had lunch facing the water over the brown sand and gravel beaches on the Ligurian Sea (contiguous to the Mediterranean, in Italy’s western armpit).

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I strolled along the beach for a bit and hopped back in the car to get to Siena. I arrived under the Tuscan sun. Before letting the sun slip beneath the horizon I drove to the highest spot in town I could find to catch a glimpse.

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Brief explanation/disclaimer: While a worthy city, my itinerary skipped Florence, as I had visited during my previous Europe trip years earlier. After the Siena sunset I checked into a bed and breakfast and headed to bed early (all part of the plan). I woke up around 1:30am local time and got my computer set up to watch game 6 of the ALCS. For better or worse, I didn’t stay awake long enough for the heartbreak. Well, with the Yankees now eliminated, and the Jets and Knicks not offering much promise or cause for optimism, I could finally divorce myself from keeping tabs on American sports (save the Widdershins – my second place fantasy football team). Now I’m only following team impeachment. LET’S GO TEAM! I slept in and spent my morning checking out historic Siena. IT doesn’t get more Italian than this, does it?

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Like the day before, I used my wanting lunch as a reason to find a small town to pull into. This time it was Bolsena, the namesake of a central-Italy lake. The town had a big hill with what appeared to be a castle at the top. This time it was a castle! Sort of. What I saw was mostly old stone homes. The castle was built between the 12th and 15th centuries by the Orvieto family to defend the town. It has been a museum since 1991, which tells the geological and human history of the region, and includes an aquarium. The museum admission including going up the towers.

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After Bolsena I was bound for Rome, where someone was waiting for me: