Verenna is one of the quieter less touristy towns, with the plus of being on the main train line. The hotel was right on the water, any closer and it would be a boat. The boys spent most of their spare times trying to catch fish (including smuggling ham from the restaurant to use as bait) but without the right gear, it was Fish: 1, Boys 0!
Day trips to Bellagio saw us visiting the huge estate of Napoleon's vice-president called "Villa Melzi Gardens" which included lots of examples of plants and trees from all over the world, as well as "Villa Carlotta" on the other side of the lake.
The next day, we took the train into Milan to take a city tour which included "The Last Supper" and "la Scala" opera house.
Only one problem with the train was we didn't have a ticket, and the train station was closed! On the train we managed to find the conductor and buy tickets before we were fined, so no problems
Ben, in describing the painting to us later called it "God's last feast" and said "I think they were eating Spaghetti Bolognese".
Lake Como, Verenna and Milan
After a long flight on Thai via Bangkok, we arrived early in the morning in Milan, tired, but in one piece. Must say they seemed to have more space in the seating than other airlines we have flown, and the food was fine, although some of the options were really spicy.
Once we got through the airport, we hit our first snag (doesn't take long!) when the car we had chosen, and confirmed, a BMW 525 was not available. This was a problem as we had measured the size of the boot to make sure that the luggage would fit (and we had lots) and anything smaller was not going to cut it. The lady at the counter was the usual cold northern Italian, and said they could arrange an Alfa (but agreed the boot would be smaller) then offered a Mercedes "A" class, telling me the boot was bigger than the BMW ... took me about 5 minutes of discussion to remember Italians pronounce "e" as sort of a flat "a" and that it was actually a Mercedes "E220" which was actually bigger (and the same as we had last time we were in Italy, although this time a manual.
Down the road to the Autostrada and the GPS was working fine, zip around Milan still fine, onto the Autostrada to Verenna and still going great... until we hit the tunnels. Anne screaming in the passenger seat (although she was screaming less than the last visit, but she really doesn't like Italian drivers or tunnels) didn't help, but every time we went into the long tunnels (and some of them were over a kilometer) and the GPS stopped. Anyway, we lost count, and coming out of one of the tunnels we also missed the turn-off! Long detour later and we found the town and our hotel.
