My last morning in lake como, I am travelling on to Venice today! By this stage I have gotten to know everyone staying in the hotel so it was a bittersweet breakfast together this morning! Ty had baked walnut bread which made an excellent cheese sandwich, and there was also an apple and almond cake to go with the apricots! An excellent last breakfast, then it was time to say goodbye to everyone and hit the road for a long days travel. First up the hour long sc...

Italian cooking class! Trip advisor has been an excellent source of information for this trip, that is where I discovered information about a cooking class run by a local chef in a remote village that had rave reviews and was an absolute bargain - €38 for the class, wine and lunch, most of the classes in Tuscany and amalfi are €200 for a day! The chef moreno was a hoot, very Italian and full of great one liners. He showed us how to make tortellini from scra...

Breakfast was another delicious treat - ham and cheese with ciabatta, more fresh apricots and saffron almond cake made without butter (the weight watchers version?). More rain! I think it has well and truly set in, so this changes my plans for today. There is a local church perched on the side of the cliff that is a highly recommended hike, but only in dry weather, so I caught a boat to varenna, another old lakeside village. It is so quaint, there is a small ha...

I met my fellow hotel guests over breakfast, all American, and there were two women celebrating the 35th anniversary of their first trip to Italy and their friendship. The breakfasts are always highly anticipated at pensionnes as they are so homecooked - today homemade bread, local cheese, eggs, a bowl of apricots and cappuchino! It started out clear and fine, so i jumped on a boat to Lenno to check out the weekly local market and do the hike to villa balbianel...

What a difference 2 hours makes, the rain stopped, the sun came out and the lake became magical. Villa Carlotta is an old villa meticulously preserved with very famous gardens - a few weeks ago they were awash with flowering azaleas, but they were still very beautiful. Carlotta was given the villa as a wedding present from her mother a few hundred years ago, and her husband was a keen botanist. The family has preserved the collection of art that was collected (m...