Italia! Lake Como turning it on.

We were pretty excited to get into Italy… slightly over the food in France, and ready to load ourselves up with carbs. We crossed the border and headed straight to Pizza. We found ourselves in a quaint little village and stuffed ourselves with gorgonzola and pear pizza and a bottle of the finest (cheapest on the menu) vino.

The next morn we headed towards a little town called Vercelli, and tried to find some breakfast. It has become apparent to us that nowhere quite does breakkie like Aussie. So, we did what everyone else was doing and had a macchiato (we don’t drink coffee) and a pastry (stuffed with pistachio flavoured cream and/or nutella). We were buzzing a bit after that so walked around the town’s local markets of fresh produce, cheese, dried meat and lots of fake Gucci and Nike.

Milan was our next destination to pick up Myron’s beauty of a cousin, Christian. We had missed him in London, so were stoked to be able to meet up along the way. After picking him up from the central train station, we headed towards Lake Como for a few nights in an air bnb.

We were greeted by our gem of a host, Alessandra in the small town of Laglio on Lake Como… only to find out our neighbour for the next few nights was none other than George Clooney himself. Our little apartment didn’t quite match up to Villa Oleandra, but we made sure to do a few hot laps of his place to try and catch a glimpse. Unfortunately, no such luck.. but Christian and I were rather impressed by his hot Italian security guard.

We knew Lake Como would see the budget blow out a little bit, but we weren’t too fussed and figured we were on holidays after all… So, aperols, wine and food came in the masses. We spent our first day drinking and lazing by the terrazza in Brienno and finished with a delicious meal in another local town ft. gelato IN my risotto!!

The second day we got a ferry across to Bellagio and explored another city. Definitely a tourist hot spot, but an enjoyable day. The ferry timetable kind of screwed us over, so instead of heading to other towns we headed back to the terrazza in Brienno and spent the afternoon drinking Aperol Spritz. Another delicious meal to follow for the evening ft. more risotto but this time with burrata (oh hot DAMN it was good).

Our last full day was jam packed with activities. Myron found us a ‘casual’ hike and again took us completely off the beaten track, but we eventually found our way and ended up hiking into Switzerland. The top offered some pretty spectacular views. We more or less ran back down, trying to get back in time for the boat we hired for the afternoon. We got to the boat, with snacks and beers and spent the last few hours of the day cruising around the Lake and doing more hot laps around Clooney’s.

Dinner was pizza at the terrazza in Moltrasio, which we were practically falling asleep eating. Big day! We farewelled Christian the next day and headed towards the mighty Dolomites.