Here in Lake Como, where is George?
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2010
1
30
144
Trip End
Mar 16, 2011
Como, Lombardy, Italy
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
We had a stop at an Autogrill (service stop) just before the Swiss/Italian border. This Autogrill was fantastic, the staff here spoke Italian even though we are still in Switzerland because we are on the Italian speaking side of the country. There was a lot of fresh food and a lot you can get cooked when ordered and the variety was amazing for a service stop. Only thing its quite pricey. Mary had a plate of mixed vegetables and Troy had bratwurst and mash and it cost a lot of money. Oh well it was pretty good. We drive through the border, no-one stopped the bus and then we drive through Lake Como, what a beautiful spot.
We check into George Clooney’s palace and for some reason the security guard kicks us out and tells us our reservation has been cancelled. Nice one George! So off we go and check into our hostel and cannot check in until 2pm so we go for a walk. We check out the boats and a few nice gardens and the views. Several seaplanes fly in and out, probably Madonna or George Clooney in town or just looking for us?. We grab a gelato and the guy short changed us, mmmmm so I told him I want my 10 extra euros back please.
We check into our room, its great a room to ourselves to try and recover and not worry about coughing and spluttering as much as we need to. We both need to chill out for a while because we are both so sick and need to relax because its not fun travelling when your sick. We have to look presentable when we go out for dinner tonight with George Clooney and Madonna in our target outfits. Our credit cards will bounce if we stop off at the Armani shop down the road.
Just put this status on my facebook: SWISS CHOCOLATE + SWISS ALPS = BLISS, now just want rid of this god damn bloody virus! We are now spending 4 days in Lake Como, Italy - going to have dinner with George Clooney and Madonna tonight wearing our fabulous Target outfits. Love to all xxx
We got back to our hotel room at “In Riva al Lago” Via Crespi, 4 /p.zza Matteotti (70 euro per night) and its so nice and modern with our own bathroom which is a luxury these days for us. The security here is pretty good you need to go through several doors and put in codes before you get to your room. When we walk into the bathroom the lights turns on automatically and squirts fresh smelly stuff all the time which at first made this weird noise that we couldn’t work out what it was. We decide that we are going to camp here for the day, rest and take it easy. So us two sickos decide to be like “seals on rocks” and sprawl over our bed and listen to the beautiful music of us taking it in turns coughing our guts up. We have to laugh and that helps us get the crap off our chests. I think Troy is going a bit nuts been sick and hits his head and throws his hand away and says “sick head go away, go away”. Its funny to watch him and we both end up cracking up. We don’t even head out for dinner because we have enough supplies of chocolate, well we bought a 6 pack of swiss chocolate before we left and we have some “Balisto” muesli bars (cool name, sounds like a relative made them), swiss muesli, one apple, a squashed croissant, swiss biscuits, diet coke, wine and water, a great diet.
Mary gets on the internet to update the blog and emails whilst Troy is lying here watching terrible Italian TV and thinks that the Simpsons in Italian is funny. He also like the dude that sounds like an Italian version of Dr Phil. He reckons he is cool, I think Troy is going nuts. Troy is having fun watching the game shows when he doesn’t understand the questions. I try to translate and its funny. I keep telling him not to make me laugh, my chest is not liking it. Hopefully tomorrow we will feel a bit better.
10 JUNE 2010 - Mary feels like crap, no sleep, pillow is terribly flat and our coughing kept me up all night. Troy slept but sounds no better. From our bedroom window it looks like today in Lake Como is very overcast.
How is Como? we don’t know, we just popped downstairs for breakfast and then we have spent the entire day in bed sounding like two dogs with real husky barks sprawled on the bed like two frogs on a rock. Troy spent the day barking and sweating and watching Italian TV. Mary spent the day barking and sweating and accessing the internet. We also got to speak to Sue (Troy’s mum) via skype so that was great to hear from her. We tried my brother Tony but no answer. Many times Mary has laughed at Troy today as he watches the crappy Italian TV shows and not understand a word they are saying. I suppose its something to do when we are both barking like crazy.
Just a message from us - We have heard a lot of bad news lately amongst Troy’s family and some close friends. We just want to say although we are far away we are thinking of you all. We send you all our love and positive vibes your way especially to those who are seriously ill because we want you all to have a speedy recovery. For those who do see this entry please pass this message to the ones concerned and who may not see this message, please know we are thinking of you all. Lots of love M & T xxx
Its late afternoon and I think we are both bored and going a bit nuts. We look like two “constipated ferrets” dancing to Lady Gaga now that is a first. We both end up killing ourselves laughing and coughing our guts up, its fun NOT! Troy gets bored and does a little dance in bed its funny, the music is crap on TV but anything I guess can be a bit entertaining when your sick. Troy loves my new husky voice - fabulous!
Anyway the most exciting thing that Mary did today was about 5pm she ventured out to buy something for dinner. I found a pizza joint and bought some back to our room and that was my excitement for the day. Good night.
11TH JUNE 2010 - We got up still feeling terrible and had our breakfast in our hotel. The breakfast here is quite good, cereals, tea, coffee, juices, yoghurt, croissants, various cakes and cheeses, hams and bread all included in our room rate. Its great having breakfast included because not many places do so this one is great to have a decent meal to keep us full for most of the day.
We decide that today we have to do something. We want to see more of Como apart from 4 white walls in our bedroom. Its really hard going when your feeling so sick (I know I can imagine no-one would have any sympathy for us - ha ha). Seriously this virus/flu has hit us pretty badly. We just have no energy, cough a lot, constantly sweating badly and just want to sleep and shower a lot. We had to change rooms today so we packed our bags and left them downstairs to return after 2pm to check bag into another room. We were originally only booked here for 2 nights but wanted 4 nights so luckily we got another private room which is nice too.
Anyway we lug ourselves out of the hotel and go and check out Lake Como. We walked around a few piazzas and saw the Duomo (cathedral). We decided to go up the funicular to see the views of Lake Como on the Como - Brunate railroad. It was rather cheap to get up to the top. When we got there the views weren’t great, it was like what where are the views?. So we just kept walking around the town and saw some amazing big houses and then we finally found a street that had great views of the city. Unfortunately today hasn’t been so clear, its rather misty and overcast. We spent sometime up here but I think we both felt hot and bothered, sweating like crazy so we just got back on the funicular and went back to our hotel. We moved our bags into our new room and then relaxed. We both feel like crap.
We chilled out for a while and then went out for dinner at a cafe. We walked around for a while trying to decide where to eat. We ate at a restaurant near the cathedral. Troy order schnitzel and potatoes and Mary had tortellini with ham and cream. Well what a very average meal. Troy’s schnitzel was tiny and it had to of come out of a packet. Mary’s tortellini was ok, pretty small and not very hot. After dinner we had a gelato, lemon (so tangy) and strawberry (so fruity) is so yummy together.
12TH JUNE 2010 - This morning we both still feel pretty crook. Troy and I have been coughing like crazy and not sleeping too well. Although we both feel pretty weak we both decided we had to do something today been our last full day. We decided to go on a ferry trip around Lake Como. Weather wise its not great, everyday has been overcast and misty so the visibility hasn’t been great. Lake Como is huge and in a shape of a Y, it has heaps of gorgeous towns with multi-coloured flash mansions and beautiful apartments. We boarded a boat at Lake Como and then went to Moltrasio. We walked around for a while and took several photos (photos of portico). We then found out that the tickets we had didn’t include all the stops we wanted to do so we had to buy more tickets. We then got back on the ferry and went to Lenno which is where we visited the beautiful Villa del Balbanello. This villa was gorgeous and had great views and gardens and apparently the place where a James Bond movie was filmed and is now a museum. We walked back to the wharf and then went to Tremezzo. In Tremezzo we went to Villa Carlotta. This villa was bought for her as a wedding present from her parents (the queen). So Princess Carlotta was a very lucky young girl, but only lived till 23 years old. The villa was huge and the gardens were amazing, so manicured and beautiful. We got back onto the boat and went to Bellagio. We just walked around town which is gorgeous and had some great pizza and a sweet apple and ricotta tart - yummo! Surprisingly the prices of food in Lake Como hasn’t been too bad compared to a lot of other places in Italy.
We have heard from several local people that the Mr George Clooney is in town at the moment. I am guessing that is probably why our reservation got cancelled. We should of been staying at his place called Villa Oleandra in Laglio, not happy George!
After all this about 7pm we paid a few more extra euro to upgrade our ticket to get the fast boat home. Slow boat would of taken 2.5 hrs and fast boat 1hr. We decided we wanted a snack and so we went downstairs to the restaurant underneath our hotel. We ordered a small pizza and some chips. When it came out, oh my god they both were huge and I double checked with the waitress that this was a small pizza for one and she said yes. Seriously it would have been about the size of a large/family size pizza you would get at home. The pizza was fabulous with 4 flavours for 6 euro so it was great. We got back to our room where Troy is watching USA v England in the soccer and then tomorrow night he hopes to watch Germany v Australia. We both still feel terrible.
Tomorrow we head back to Nice for just one night and then onto Avignon, France.
