A castle, a garden, and mountains

Its amazing what a difference a day makes. As well as how much the clouds parting and sun shining can add to a place, its magical. We definitely took advantage of the weather and made an earlier start of it.

There is a castle above Varenna in the tiny town of Vezio, Castello Di Vezio to be exact. We thought it would be a simple climb slightly uphill. Oh, how we were wrong. It was a slippery uphill battle on cobblestones to the top and it was steep. Luckily we had a carb loaded breakfast of chocolate croissants and muesli. As we walked we hoped it would be worth it and it sure was!

Although we'd call it a fortress and less of a castle. Here are the pics:




The view from our room in the morning. There are actually mountains with snow, who knew.


A vibrant side street in Varenna.





The start of our uphill battle.


The mountains get even more snow covered at the north point of Lake Como.




This photo clearly shows you at what angle you will be climbing to get to the Castello. Here we were hoping it was just a loose nail.


Bellagio to the left (the dark hill again) and Tremezzo across from it to the right.


Olive grove with an amazing view of the fork in the lake with Bellagio at its head.


The Castello is also home to one of the northern most olive groves in the world. Fun Fact.


The tower, and more ivy, yay!





Vezio through the Castello.








The top two pics are looking down on Varenna and across to Tremezzo/Menaggio.













Look at all that snow!




On our way to Bellagio looking north to the top of Lake Como.


Bellagio is prettier when its not raining.





Because we didn't get a chance to explore much of Bellagio due to the rain the day before we decided to see how far we could walk in order to get to the top of the fork point. As it happens the top of the fork is a lovely little park with a small area to dock boats. We had the beach all to ourselves and the view was amazing, so I decided it would be the spot where I would spread Gram & Paps. They'll have a great view of the snow covered mountains in the distance as well as Varenna and Menaggio and I thought they'd enjoy all the boat traffic being the lake people they were.









Now was our perfect opportunity to explore the gardens, The Villa Melzi Gardens of Bellagio to be exact.
















Everything was in Italian, so I have no idea what anything actually is or means, but it sure was beautiful.







I love how interested the dog is in this shot. "No, you can not see what is behind this leaf, Rex!








This guy is all ready for Halloween, he's going as a Lion's dinner. I translated that from the Italian plaque. I'm pretty good at it.













So I know everyone is wondering what about George Clooney (Jen). Well, his house, ok Villa, is down this way to the right around the hill but you can only get there by rented boat or taxi boat which they actually call the Tour George, which feels kind of creepy to me, since he's just some guy, all be it a very good looking guy who once owned a bulldog, so he's probably pretty awesome, but it feels like stalking. So its out.




When in Italy you must take at least one picture of a vespa on the street. Check. (I even caught some awesome lens flare)





Our arrival home to Varenna, so pretty!


Looking out or our window to Bellagio. If you look right in the middle of Bellagio down by the water is where we spread Gram and Paps.

Tomorrow is supposed to pour again, so I am going to try and post these blogs from a cafe because our Hotel internet WiFi is horrible (I think its all the marble blocking it). Then we'll see what the day brings, it is nice to have no real plans for our last few days here.