Packing, Petrol, Pesky Italians And Pizza
Our pack up this morning was hurried along by the early arrival of the cleaners. Apparently they had new people coming at lunchtime and needed us out the door in a hurry. There’s nothing like someone looking over your shoulder to get you moving. With one last visit to our favourite cake shop and one last patisserie for the road, we jumped in the car and set off for the birthplace of pizza. Travelling back towards Eze and Monaco we were treated with those spectacular views again and as we climbed to the high road (eek!) the views were even better, if that’s possible. The roads here certainly get your blood pumping. We were doing 140km p/h at some stages and cars were actually flying past us at even greater speeds. Sam comforted me with the sentiment that if you crash at any speed over 100km p/h the result is going to be the same. Gee thanks.
The high road to Italy has a LOT of tunnels carved into the mountainside, so many in fact that we lost count. Twisting and turning around the mountain road, crossing insanely tall bridges that rise from sea level to dizzying heights – nothing between you and the hundreds of metres below but a flimsy guard rail – and seeing the vast blue of the Mediterranean below, all made for a pretty adrenaline filled trip. The road we were on was the main thoroughfare for trucks so there was a lot of overtaking going on too. Again, our driver/navigating A Team did an amazing job. Everyone else in the car was pumped and loving it. I’m just a wooss!
At one stage in the 3 and a half hour journey Toby gazed from on high down to some farm houses below and commented that the houses were looking a lot more Italian. Sam, in possession of the map, scoffed at first, maintaining we were still in France but on closer inspection of our location, realised we had actually crossed over an international border and were, in fact, in Italy! Good spotting a Tobes. Now if our other border crossings had been unceremonious, this one took the cake! There wasn’t even a sign. It changed from being France to being Italy in the middle of a tunnel! Sure enough, a few kms down the road, the road signs had flipped to another language and we were definitely in Italia! If we could count skirting the edges of Monaco, that made it 3 countries in one day which was pretty cool.
The Italian countryside was gorgeous. Terraced hillsides with hothouses and cute little farmhouses. There were villages nestled in the valleys and perched on the hills – each one with a tall church steeple, easily seen sticking up high above the rest of the houses. These church steeples were everywhere.
We had planned to catch a train from Milan up to Varenna and had to drop the family truckster back to Milan too. Most people I spoke to when planning our trip advised us not to spend too much time in Milan, saying it wasn’t worthy of a look. We’d planned to just pass through but Sam’s phone was on the blink and he’d discovered there was an Apple shop in Milan. We decided to make a (hopefully) quick pit stop there. Compared to the cosy little villages we’d spent time in, Milan was a thriving metropolis complete with high rises, traffic jams, large parks and statues. Milan’s reputation as being the fashion capital of the world was made obvious by the plethora of well dressed women and sharply dressed men- oozing style wearing brightly coloured pants with leather slip-on shoes. Ross said he was hoping to be ‘discovered’ while he was there but I’m not sure his t-shirt and shorts were quite up to scratch. You never know…
We were in and out of the Apple shop in record time and after dropping the car off, had a hot and sweaty walk to Milan Central Railway station. From the outside it looked like a palace and on the inside it looked like a bustling airport. It was so busy and confusing and everybody was speaking Italian (funny that!). We had NO idea where to go. The hour we’d left ourselves since dropping off the car had whittled away and we now had 20 minutes to board a train. We bought the tickets at the machine but being in Italian, we couldn’t read them and didn’t know which platform our train was leaving from. We found a customer service queue and joined in the hope it would move fast and the crowd would quickly disperse. When I got to the top of the queue, I was met with a poker-faced ‘customer service’ representative who babbled to me in Italian and shook his head. Apparently there was a take-a-ticket system and I had omitted to get the blasted ticket. Even though I’d lined up as long as everyone with a precious ticket, this guy was refusing point blank to serve me. I tried to explain that, not being able to speak Italian had been a slight hindrance in realising there was a need to get a ticket. He spoke to me in English and said: “I cannot serve you without a ticket”. The next guy in line, WITH a ticket, was happy for me to be served before him but Mr Customer Service wasn’t going to budge. I conceded I’d hit a brick wall but the line was now enormous and all I needed to know was which platform to get on. Thrusting my ticket before him I said, “OK, can you please just tell me which platform we need?” My request was met by his unsmiling face and slow, relentlessly shaking head. There was no way he was going to tell me.
Feeling extremely frazzled (not to mention hot and sweaty – it was like an oven in there!) we studied the light up Departures board but were still without a clue as to where we needed to go. Sam raced up the escalator to get some help and came back declaring it was Platform 10 we needed. With only 10 minutes to spare now, we sped up the two giant travellators with all our luggage to Platform 10 but the train was going to Verona, not Varenna. Maybe when Sam had said Varenna with his Australian accent it had sounded like Varona. The clock was ticking! Ross ran in one direction to get some help, Sam ran in the other direction and the rest of us waited with the luggage and tried not to worry. I’m not a big help in times of crisis and feeling the stress and urgency of the situation, I stared to cry! Not a big help to anyone really. The boys returned simultaneously, with minutes to spare, shouting “Platform 7!” We raced down beside the train to find an open door and loaded our bags in to Ross as fast as we could. Toby got his foot in the door as the whistle blew, literally seconds before the train lurched from its platform. Wow, that was close.
The train was absolutely packed! Our giant mound of luggage was never going to fit easily. We made a substantial pile of bags by the door and Ross stood guard while we looked for some seats. It must’ve been 35 degrees in the train and as we walked down through about 8 carriages we were red-faced and sweaty, garnering some disapproving looks from the Italian commuters. There was a First Class cabin at the very front of the train with plenty of seats so Toby, Maisy and Sam sat down. I was sure they’d get kicked out but they didn’t!
Meanwhile, I found a single seat close to where Ross was waiting with the bags. The girl I’d sat next to, looked me up and down, exhaled dramatically and then excused herself, moving across the aisle to sit next to someone else, perhaps a little less sweaty. There were no hard feelings.
As we neared Varenna, we could see magnificent mountains and beautiful Lake Como out the window. As we alighted the train, lugging our bags along the platform, Maisy triumphantly announced that her tooth had just fallen out. She’s hoping the tooth Fairy works in Euros too.
We weren’t sure how far our hotel was from the station but Google maps said it was a ten minute walk. Had we known it was 37 degrees, a steep, uphill walk on cobblestones, wearing our weighty backpacks and wheeling our 20kg bags that kept getting snagged on the road (mine capsized about 10 times), we may have just opted for a cab. By the time we arrived at the cute little hotel opposite the church in the town square we’d all just about expired. As we were checking in, a sticky green ooze was leaving a puddle on the floor in the lobby. Toby’s mint cordial from France had sprung a leak. I’m not sure that the hotel’s first impression of us was fabulous. i think they were wondering what they’d got themselves into.
It was such a relief to put those bags down. Varenna, a pretty fishing village dating back to the eleventh century on the shores of Lake Como, is absolutely gorgeous. Words can’t describe how beautiful the lake is, surrounded by mountains, gardens and exquisite Italian houses in terracotta with window boxes overflowing with brightly coloured geraniums and hydrangeas jutting out from shuttered windows. The bell in the tall church steeple was chiming loudly through the town on our arrival. We wondered whether it goes off on the hour all night. Hopefully not, it’s pretty loud! Wandering down staircases that led along cobblestone paths and down other staircases that wound around the lakeshore, leading to other cobblestone paths, I realised how easy it would be to get lost in this place! A trail of breadcrumbs might be in order if I ever decide to venture out alone. Each glimpse of the Lake took our breath away. It is stunning!
We found a lakefront restaurant where we could have a drink and some complimentary salami, cheese and breadsticks. Again, the view was insane! It looked just like where Anakin Skywalker got married. We got a bit snap happy before wandering down to the lakefront for dinner at Molo’s (missing Molly!) where we had a delicious meal served by the effervescent Alessandro, our hilarious waiter who restored our faith in the Italians. Loving his Italian accent we were all being silly trying to imitate him and when Sam gave his order he accidentally slipped into his best Italian accent and said: “I’ll-a have-a de pizza please-a!” Toby and I cracked up! He hadn’t meant to do it and I’m sure Alessandro hadn’t even noticed. We walked back along the lake in the magical moonlight, munching on gelato and feeling once again like we were in a movie.
