Here we are in the Italian region of Lombardy, more than 1,000 kilometres from home. 768 of those were covered yesterday, as we traversed the Netherlands and Germany, making it into Switzerland before nightfall.
When the children’s bedtime was looming, we pulled off the road just outside of Basel and found a room for the night in in the small town of Sissach at the Zur Sonne hotel.
The room was really nothing to write home about, but I can reveal that the hotel possesses an excellent restaurant. There is really no way you could suspect this from the rest of the hotel. Everything else about the place was average or slightly better, but the restaurant really excelled.
Anyway, we drove the remaining 277 km today to Bellagio. The Google Maps link shows us skirting around Lago di Como (Lake Como) to the south, but, in actual fact, we took the expensive (€17) ferry from Menaggio on the west side of the lake.
The drive down through Switzerland was breathtaking, one of the very nicest I have ever had the pleasure of being behind the wheel for. From Lucerne down to Lugano was really one long feast for the eyes, and one that didn’t end at the border, either. On the Italian side, the spectacle continued around Lago di Lugano (Lake Lugano), making us wish we could spend an hour or two at every bend in the road.
Anyway, Bellagio is quite lovely. It’s fairly low key, or at least feels that way in May. It may be a different story in July and August.
We haven’t done much yet, but that’s part of the appeal of being here. We’ve eaten well, as you might imagine, including the obligatory scrumptious ice-cream and delicious coffee. Apart from that, though, we’ve just ambled around the narrow streets and browsed in shops.
Similarly, we have no real plans for tomorrow, either, although a drive around some more of the lake seems in order. We’ll just take it as it comes.