BELLAGIO & FLORENCE

DAY 12

As we ate our breakfast in the hotel dining room overlooking Lake Como, one simple question kept running through my brain: Why can’t we build ANYTHING in the United States that looks as nice and lasts as long as pretty much EVERYTHING in Italy? Why do we build such ugly, crappy buildings with a life span of a little more than thirty years, while the Italians have managed to design and build handsome structures with grace and class from the time of Christ right up until today?

We strolled around charming Bellagio after leaving our bags at the hotel, and then did some last minute shopping before catching a cab to Milan.

I already covered how long and tedious trying to catch taxis, ferries, trains, and more taxis would be when carrying luggage. They told us at our hotel that it would cost 175€ to reserve a local cab to Milan, an hour drive, so I went online and found a website where we could book taxi transfers and I hired a driver in five minutes for 100€ — exactly what we had paid to get there. SCORE! This allowed us to stay in Bellagio until two, rather than leave at ten, and avoided having to worry about whether we caught our train in Milan to Florence on time after multiple connections. Quality time is worth way more than money when you are in a place like Lake Como and don’t want to ever leave.

We finally were out of Euros on our last day in Bellagio, and lucky for us, Deutsche Bank had a small office right next to our hotel. There was an ATM machine outside, but we had to exchange U.S. dollars for Euros, so we needed to go inside via the weird, bullet-proof, locked-capsule doorway that resembled a decontamination chamber. In Bellagio, they obviously take the security of money very seriously.

Inna loves to shop, and Italy is like heaven when it comes to clothes and leather goods. Me? I could care less. But, we stumbled on an eye-catching store in Bellagio called Bellagioseta, selling a jet set assortment of top end Italian clothes and leather gear. And to my own surprise, I ended up buying two very expensive psychedelic Vitaliano ties; Inna bought the most amazing black and red elegant shoes I have ever seen, and some lovely Italian scarves for friends at home. The store owner Giovani invited us back for a longer stay and reminded us that he has an online store.

https://www.bellagiolakecomo.com/en/bellagio-lake-como-italy/POI-points-of-interest/bellagioseta-clothes-and-accessories
E-mail: bellagioseta@libero.it

We dropped 400€ on clothes and gifts in Bellagioseta. Italian goods are expensive, but like their structures, they are made to last. And in the end, unlike America, you get what you pay for.

A funny thing happened after our little shopping spree at Bellagioseta. Inna walked into another nearby store while I struck up a conversation with two rather large Mennonite ladies on holiday who were hopelessly lost. I gave them directions to the market they were looking for. I said that it looked like they had been shopping and they showed me some colorful scarves they had just purchased. I tried to imagine how their purchases might fit in with the standard, plain, long, prairie dress and blue bonnet uniform worn by women of the Mennonite faith. Then they asked to see what I had in my shopping bag and they said they were the prettiest ties they had ever seen.

About this point, Inna came out of the dress shop, saw me chatting it up with the Beef Sisters and came up to us with a big smile on her face. She said, as if in confidence to the two jolly ladies, “I can’t trust my husband no matter where we go. I leave him alone for a minute and he starts flirting with two pretty ladies. I hope he didn’t bother you girls too much.”

The two church ladies literally blushed and started giggling like young girls. They said that I had been the perfect gentleman. Inna had clearly made their day.

And as we walked away, I stated singing an old Son Seales blues song, “I’m going home. Where the women got some meat on their bones.”

Before leaving town we bought some luscious fresh organic fruit and walked back to our hotel where we sat on the stone terrace in the shade, overlooking the lake and watching the car ferries land and depart. It was a hot 80 degrees with a laser beam sun working the Alps and we ate our fruit — the best strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries I have ever tasted — at a table on the veranda like lairds of the castle.

We were amazed at how many tourists have dogs. Some may be service dogs, but many are big beasts like Golden’s, shepherds, and labs. Inna pointed out that they were probably Germans and Swiss who drove to Lake Como in the family car and brought their doggies along.

The taxi ride from Bellagio to Milan with Warner in his 2018 Audi station wagon that was incredibly tricked out with the latest electronic gadgets was a white-knuckler as we careened around tight turns on the barely two lane road along the lake, dodging big trucks, bikes, tractors, and slow-driving motorists. Warner was a total pro who had been driving people around the Lake Como area for twenty years for his father’s limo business and he wasn’t taking any shit off the traffic as he hauled ass along the squirrelly lake highway to Milan.

We arrived at the Central Station in about an hour. That left us with thirty minutes to navigate the ginormous Romanesque, white marble train station; hit the head; and find our fast train. We accomplished our mission with alacrity and caught the bullet train to Florence (Firenze), a trip of 1:45 with a brief stop in Bologna.

It’s only about thirty minutes from Bologna to Florence on a train that goes 150 mph and we rolled into Florence a little after 6. So, it took 3.5 hours from the Metropole Hotel in Bellagio to the train station in Florence. I don’t even want to think about how long and stressful it would have been for us if we followed some expert like Rick Steves’ directions. I never trusted anyone who has a last name that’s really a first name — especially MINE!

That said, the cost of the trip on the Rick Steve’s Plan would have been about 300€. And we spent 360€. You decide which Steve’s plan was better.

The ride south on the train illustrated again how most of the countries of Europe, including Italy, do not allow their citizens to chew up the countryside with sprawling crap and big box subdivisions. No farmettes. No strip malls. No commercial anything. Italy, other than within the big cities, is just one big happy farm. As a result, once you get out of an Italian city you are immediately in a completely rural world of tidy farmland, sprinkled with the occasional small crossroads village. I guess it’s sort of like guns. The rest of the earth doesn’t allow unfettered gun ownership, and their murder rates are quite low, and they don’t allow individuals to chew up the rural landscape like rapacious monsters run amok. I, for one, will take the European models of gun control and land use any day.

Walked 5.6 miles

Insider Tip — You should always use a reputable bank when it comes to currency exchanges. Inna & I each exchanged $500 and received 440€ at a Deutsche Bank. The exchange rate in May of 2019 was $1 = .89€, so that was a fair deal. And they only charged a $2 service fee. Some banks will charge you exorbitant service fees, so always be sure to ask what they charge before you even start the transaction.

Insider Tip — WHEREVER YOU MIGHT HAPPEN TO BE IN THE WORLD, if you want to avoid complicated connections between towns, airports, or trains, check out the website: GetTransfer.com for cheaper and totally reliable rides, like an upscale Uber, but way cheaper. You set the price you think is fair and then professional drivers bid for your business, and you pay through a secure website. They even tell you the name of your driver, his contact info, the make and year of his car, and the license plate number. If you only remember one thing from all of my blogs, remember this tip.