Caliban – Opinion and Righteous Anger

Boneheads, indeed!

Sarah was right, though. It took me a good hour and forty-five minutes to drive the sixty or so kilometres from Lenno to Bellagio.

As Sarah said, I probably should have left the car on the western shore of the lake or brought it back on the ferry. The traffic going through Como was murder and this really slowed me down. I then had to floor it along the winding road of the eastern shore in order to get back at a decent time for dinner. It was a good test of my driving skills, though, as the road is crammed with blind bends and tight squeezes, where only a single car can pass at once.

It was quite misty today; cool, too; but at least it didn’t rain. The high temperature for tomorrow is forecast to be 11°C. Let’s hope it turns out better than that.

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.

Sarah wants to go travelling again. Me, I could live without it this time.

For one thing, Koninginnedag will be here in a couple of days. We were in Istanbul last year and missed it, so Eloïse doesn’t really have a memory of it. The weather here has also been beautiful over the last few days. The garden is in bloom, the grass is lush and the Vondelpark is awash every afternoon with people picnicking and lazing around. I see these as good omens for a pleasant Koninginnedag, not in the last place because of the feelings of relaxation they engender in me, the beholder.

But, as I intimated, we won’t be here this time.

We’ll also miss the Giro d’Italia, as it passes through the Netherlands. The first three stages will start in Amsterdam. The first, a time trial, will start and finish within walking distance of our house. We have the unique opportunity to witness every single rider individually pass by in front of our nose. As a bonus, traffic will be at a minimum those days and obviously won’t be allowed anywhere near the route.

But, as I mentioned, we won’t be here for it.

Tomorrow, we hit the road and drive through Germany and Switzerland en route to northern Italy, where we’ll spend the two week May school holiday. We’re bound by these scholastic hiatuses now, forced to migrate at the same time as all of the other herded sheep, after decades of scoffing at them for being mugs who had dug their own graves. We weren’t wrong, of course. It’s just that we have since grabbed a shovel and carved out a plot of land for ourselves, too.

I’ve updated the car with the 2010 Audi navigation DVD, so we have the latest maps for the trip.

We won’t make Italy tomorrow; at least, I’d be very surprised if we did. If we get as far as Lucerne, I’ll consider it a commendable achievement. So, who knows where we’ll spend tomorrow night?

The day after, though, we’ll enter the land of great food and all of my gains from disciplined dieting and a strict exercise regime will start to unravel.

Sarah has planned everything, so I couldn’t even tell you where we’re going, although I do know that we’ll end up in Venice and will be skipping Milan.

Hopefully, we’ll have some Internet access along the way and I can blog about what we’ve seen and where we’ve been.