Keeping my Balance: Bellagio and castello di vezio

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Bellagio and castello di vezio

Foggy day - rain was expected but never showed up- the alps were shrouded in fog and clouds but the peaks showed through some of the day and that seemed to make them look even taller and almost unbelievably steep.

We decided to take the ferry to Bellagio across the lake. It's a much bigger town with many more shops. Did some window shopping and walking - here are a few sights we found interesting...

We found a little spot for lunch at a "wine bar" or enoteca..
Food comments in separate post.
It had a table of 7 people, us and 2 other tables just for wine service. The other table had some interesting characters - Americans of course - they were all related in some way and the one man was obviously the dominant personality. Turns out he's some sort of executive at Apple - as he put it, there's Jobs and the next-in-command and then he's "just under the radar". They shared some of their food with us - they went through 4 courses and several bottles of wine and next were going for facials and spa treatments at their hotel in Bellagio

- we trouped back to our ferry to Varenna and our spa-less little hotel. And not only no spa but no rest - Bill had me hiking up the mountain to the old Castello di Vizeo above Varenna. It's called a 1/4 mile hike but I think that is the change in latitude and longitude without taking into consideration the steep climb!! On a good day the view would be breathtaking but while we didn't get that view, we did get out of breath....

The castle is largely ruined
but there is a large tower you can climb - more steps!