I'm in Love with the Como

We were fortunate enough to have the time this weekend to take a short trip up to Lake Como and it was beyond incredible.  I think every other sentence I uttered was “wow…look at this place. This is where we are guys!  We are HERE! In this beautiful place! HERREEE!!!!”  Just ask my long-suffering travel companions – they will verify my extra-ness.  Six of us took the trip:

Roughly from left to right: me, Margaret, Jordan, Lindsey, Mandy, and Zach  

We had an absolute blast! Lake Como is actually a very long, skinny lake that splits in the middle, so it looks kind of like a stick man.  It’s a glacier-formed lake that is the third largest lake in Italy and, at 1300 feet, the deepest lake!  Coming from Johnson’s Lake, where the depth is 30 feet in a really wet summer, it's kind of scary to think about just how deep that is!  People have been coming to the lake since Roman times for summer recreation, so it was really cool to continue that tradition ourselves.

The lakeside town of Varenna,

We took a train from Milan and arrived in Varenna in an hour.  About 20 minutes outside of Milan the landscape changed and we travelled along the lake for the remainder of our journey, faces pressed against the glass and phone cameras active.  The mountains surrounding the lake give it the feeling of total seclusion, even though it’s quite a busy area – especially on Sunday.

You can see the top of the mountain is obscured by clouds!

From Varenna we took a ferry across the lake to Bellagio and spent the rest of the day wandering around, eating gelato, and for 4 blissful hours, swimming and sunning ourselves.  It was so wonderful not to have to worry about the clock after a really, really, really long week of difficult school classes, late nights, and early mornings.  The water was shockingly cold but the sun was hot and we were able to lie on a warm, floating dock, diving into the crystal clear water as soon as we warmed up again.

The view from our swimming location.

On our way back, the sun ducked behind some clouds and we felt a few rain drops.  It was such a beautiful place and so hard to leave.  Even still, I can feel the rocking motion of the dock and the sun on my face.  While we had just a short time there, this magical lago will remain in my heart forever.