Naples to Varenna (Lake Como) June 15

                                                          June 15                                Trip to Date

Miles Walked                                       6.8                                              384.8

Feet Climbed                                       650                                            41,220

Song of the Day:  America by Simon and Grafunkle

Laughing on the bus,

Playing games with the faces,

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.

I said, "Be careful,

His bow tie is really a camera."

So I looked at the scenery,

She read her magazine;

And the moon rose over an open field.

This song by Paul Simon is one of my all time favorite road trip tunes (a niche market to be sure!).   There is just something so evocative about this song in terms of travel.  Although it is set in America, it seems to me that it fits for roadtrips anywhere.  Linda and I have traveled all over the world, and one of our favorite pastimes is to make up stories about people we see!  Perhaps similar to Paul Simon implying that a guy on the bus was a spy. The stories about people are almost always better than their reality.

We took a train from Naples to Milan, and then caught a local train from Milanto Varenna on Lake Como.  The train from Naples to Milan was on Italy's modern fast train. It only stopped in Rome, and  then was non-stop to Milan.  The train had a speedometer in the car that constantly read in excess of 300 km per hour (about 200 miles per hour).  It was a very comfortable ride, and only took 3 hours from Rome to Milan.   The only thing I didn't like about the ride:  the train was covered a plastic wrap advertising the expo going on in Milan.  You have seen these wraps on busses all over the worlD, advertising movies, etc.  the majority of these wraps are printed on large format HP printers by the way.  The reason I didn't like it:  the views out the windows were distorted by the film.  Too bad, because much of the ride was through prime Tuscany.  

We had one of those only in Italy stories today.  When we arrived in Rome, a guy who was sitting next to us left, and another guy came on the train and took his place. The new guy saw my San Francisco Giants hat and asked if I was a Giants fan.  As it turns out, he is an Italian who lives in San Francisco, and only 2 blocks from our home!  We had a similar thing happen to us last year in a small town in Italy where we met  another Italian guy who runs a restaurant a few blocks from our San Francisco home.  What are the chances of this stuff happening?  He was a terrific guy, and conversations with him easily took up the three hour trip.  

We arrived in Varenna on Lake Como around 2:00 afternoon.  We are staying in an old villa, set on the slope above the village of Varenna on Lake Como.  The villa has been made into a B&B with about 8 rooms or so.   We have a pretty incredible view of the lake and the mountains from our room.  After hiking around the area for a while, it started to rain.  We stopped for a lunch at a small cafe on the lake, shown in the photo below.   Unfortunately, the forecast is for rain on Tuesday as well.  

 I want to wish  a happy birthday to my brother Larry in Virginia today.  Hope you had a good one.

Tomorrow, we have planned a good hike on the west side of the lake.  We will take a ferry to the village of Menaggio, then hike about 8-10 miles south along the shore and over some of the lower mountains.  We will then take a ferry to Bellaggio for a late lunch/early dinner.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that the weather cooperates.