Thursday, 30 September. We woke Randy at 8:45 and went down to breakfast. Darrell went up and woke him again at 9:00. His missing luggage had been delivered during the night. He joined us at 9:15. They served a typical continental breakfast with excellent fresh rolls and breads. We ordered some cheese (extra) and that was very good.
Back at the hotel, we rested while waiting for the weather to clear. It did get a little brighter, and we decided to go to the city of Como at the southwest corner of the lake. A friend had told Jane about the "fabulous" downtown shopping area. We thought that might be a good place to go on a rainy day because we would be inside most of the time. So we caught the 2:30 aliscafo (hydrofoil) that would get us to Como in an hour, instead of the three hours it would take by ferry. On the way the hydrofoil took us very close to Villa Balbianello, situated on the tip of a point of land jutting into the lake.
It was raining just a little when we arrived in Como. We landed on the west side of Piazza Cavour and strolled around the old town center, now mostly a pedestrian-only area. It was reasonably attractive, with many upscale shops, but nothing spectacular. Piazza Duomo was very interesting, though. This is the site of the Torre del Comune and the Broletto, as well as the Cathedral. The Gothic-Renaissance cathedral was begun in 1396 but took nearly 350 years to complete (1744). Inside, on either side of the main door, is a small temple with statues of Como-born Roman historians: Pliny the Elder (who perished when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD) is in one, and his nephew, Pliny the Younger, in the other. We were also impressed by the cathedral's stained glass windows. They were exceptionally vivid, even on this dreary day.
Adjoining the Cathedral is the Broletto, the old town hall, originally built in Romanesque style but later converted to Gothic (1477) with a distinctive red, white and gray marble facade. This was the site of Como's "stone of shame" upon which bankrupts and insolvent debtors were punished by having their bare buttocks paddled before the jeering citizenry. This custom endure for six centuries, until the French revolutionary armies arrived in Italy. Also near the Cathedral were a number of splendid old houses with wrought iron balconies, but we didn't try to walk over to them because the rain was getting worse. Since we hadn't had lunch, we decided to stop in a cute little bar for a snack, hoping the rain would letup by the time we finished. Such optimism!
When we left the bar, the rain was coming down in buckets. We decided to catch the 5:15 hydrofoil back to Varenna. We could walk part of the way under the cover of an arcade, but eventually we had to go out in the open. Even though there was an obvious slope down toward the lake, the water was at least four inches deep in the streets. The sewers along the waterfront street were like geysers, with the water spouting from them four feet in the air. A kind woman, who was trying to call a taxi on her cell phone, offered to take us in her taxi to the ferry dock. However, after several minutes she had not even succeeded in getting her call through. We thought it extremely unlikely that any taxi would be there within the foreseeable future, so we thanked her and took off. After dashing a block in the downpour, we found a spot to wait within sight of the pier where we had landed and under the large awning of a restaurant. When the hydrofoil failed to show up, though, we realized we were waiting at the wrong pier. By the time we waded another long block through several inches of water to get to the east side of Piazza Cavour, we had missed the 5:15 hydrofoil. We waited 45 minutes for the next one, totally soaked up to the knees and squishing with every step we took. We got back to Varenna at 7 p.m. and immediately changed into dry clothes. We used Jane's hair dryer to try to dry our shoes, but it was only after several such sessions, ending the next morning, that they were finally usable again. We ate another of the Olivedo's fabulous dinners from 7:45 until 9:30. By then, warm, dry, and pleasantly stuffed, we were feeling pretty good again. |
