We had a bit of a trek in front of us for our last day. Since we were leaving from Milano Malpensa airport (north of Milan) we knew that it was a reasonable trip to the airport from the east shore of Lake Como. We worked out our plan to stay at Relais Villa Vittoria in Laglio. This was a hotel we discovered three years ago and really enjoyed our stay.
 |
| mornings like this make it hard to leave! |
Lake Como is a three hour drive from Cogne and we wanted to try to make it to Laglio and the hotel by 1:30 or so……in time for lunch and some time in the afternoon by the pool. This meant trying to leave the Bellevue by around 10:00. This actually worked out well without any rushing around. The breakfast buffet is hard to resist and I think we both ate too much (again!). We joked that we would work it off in our bouncy little car going back down the mountain roads!
The day brought bright sunshine again. It’s funny how the views and perspectives change going back down……rather than climbing up. It seemed easier somehow, and we also caught glimpses of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn – which we had missed in the other direction.
 |
| crazy line for the rest rooms at our pit stop......fortunately got in before the bus unloaded. Most of the toilets were out of service! |
Once out of Val d’Aosta, the scenery and driving gets a bit flat and monotonous. Other than stopping for gas, a pit stop and expresso, we just cruised along for a few hours, around Torino and around Milano and finally in to the Como area around the lake. Last time we went this route we made a couple of wrong turns at the bottom of the lake and got a bit lost. This time we were better prepared and were lucky to make all the right turns! We got to the door of the hotel right at 1:30.
A brief note here in that the hotel literally reveals itself as a door (more accurately a gate) with no windows or major signs on the street. There is no sidewalk and the street is only about 20 feet wide (we should have taken a picture!). They have two small parking spaces for unloading. You would never think this is a hotel! Once through the gates, the view is amazing.
The building was originally a private villa overlooking the lake. It now has about 15 rooms? and a small ‘cottage’ as they call it, which is basically a tiny converted outbuilding with two rooms……a small sitting area on the ground floor and a steep stair to a second level bedroom and bath. It is small but very romantic.....perfect for our last night of the trip.
The best feature of the 'Cottage' is a private terrace overlooking the lake. Of course, enjoying all of this to its maximum depends on the weather! We have been so lucky…….and the good fortune continued today.
In fact the temperature got up into the low 80’s, the warmest of our trip. We checked in, I parked the car up the road and we headed down to lunch on the lowest terrace, where there is a shaded bar in a wonderful ‘grotto-like’ space adjacent to the pool area. Lunch was great, and since the pool area was quiet we ran up and got into our suits.
It was quite fun and enlivened our afternoon. The wedding was actually a dual ceremony which was happening tomorrow (Tuesday) and included twin sisters! We learned more than we could have anticipated, but the discussion was engaging and they were fascinated by our travels in Italy…..all this while hanging out on the steps of the pool.
We also had fun talking about the fact that the Obamas were heading this way later in the week. George Clooney’s villa is actually only about 100 yards down along the lake. Apparently the Clooneys have invited the Obamas to stay at the villa, which has a separate guest house. There was a lot of speculation and joking about the security measures that might be put in place in this small town.
A small group of us decided to try swimming in the lake, so we headed down the steps to the boat dock and dove in! It was great fun and the water was not too cold. After a while we retreated into the shade of the grotto terrace and almost fell asleep in the lounge chairs.
Around 5:30 we headed back up to shower and relax on our terrace, particularly since the hotel had left us a bottle of prosecco on ice……a great way to close out the afternoon.
Dinner was outside on the dining terrace, also overlooking the lake. When we were here before it was too cold to sit outside…….so this was a special treat. It was a wonderful evening. Our table was surrounding by jasmine vines and the view was beautiful. We were lucky to sit down and order just before the entire wedding party arrived. It was clear that they would have an impact on the service staff, so it was nice to be two steps ahead. The mood was celebratory and they kept waving over to Andrea!
Speaking of Andrea, we have a 'rule' with the blog........he/she who writes that day gets to pick the pictures. Below are a couple of images (we have energized discussions about showing pictures of each other!)......which Andrea might like to edit.......but I think she looks beautiful! Such a nice way to remember the last night of the trip!
We wandered back to our room around 10:30 and faced the inevitable organization of a bit of ‘repacking’ and a painful discussion about setting the alarm for the morning! We were really glad we made the effort to go a bit out of the way to revisit Relais Villa Vittoria.