Sylvia's Journal

We left the house on Monday morning with everyone packed up except Axel and me.  For the others the 7 AM departure on Tuesday morning had suggested an overnight near the airport. The friendly United Airlines telephone artist sold them an overpriced sketchy hotel that would sleep three adults and a baby.

We had enough time for a morning, some coffee and a light lunch in Como, sitting across from the Duomo which was closed until the afternoon. Tessa stocked up on some last cheeses for friends in the US – which we get to carry – and then it was time for the difficult goodbye I had been dreading all morning.

Axel and I walked around some more in Como, eating one more gelato and looking for an ancient walk Axel had to see (we did, it looked mostly like all the other old walls in Europe) and contemplated which route to take back to Bellagio: the drive over the mountains through the middle of the Bellagio promontory, or the narrow zigzag road we had taken in the morning, along the eastern shore of the lake or the one on the western shore that the kids had taken on their way in and that required a ferry ride to Bellagio.  The best way would have been the slow (2 hour) ferry directly from Como to Bellagio but it didn’t take cars.

We decided on the west bank, partially because there was a supermarket on the way out of town we were told. As the last ones leaving our rental place, our job was to replace the supplies we had used. It took us an hour to find the one that was right next to the exit of our parking garage in Como.  Directions from non-English speaking Italians (we met very few who spoke more than a few words) have been rather sketchy throughout our trip. Actually, all directions, whether from maps, GPS or word of mouth were problematic as we discovered over and over again.

This was also true of advice about which wine to buy.  On the suggestion of a local shopper with whom he stood in line, Axel unwittingly bought a sweet bubbly red wine for our ‘cena ultima’ in Italy.  We only saw the word ‘frizzante’ printed on the bottom of the label after we had opened the bottle – buyer beware! I stuck with my white wine spritz(er) – the spritz part, we learned, is an Austrian invention.

The late afternoon ferry ride from Caddenabia was spectacular. We noticed that Bellagio was glowing gold in a Rembrandtesque sort of way– the only place on the shore catching the last two hours of direct sun rays because of a low ridge in the west. Anything left, right and across from Bellagio looked rather dull in comparison.

We joined the post vacation crowd on a terrace by the shore until the sun finally set, for our final vacation beer. We talked softly, trying not to reveal to the other, mostly mature, couples sitting around us that we were American. One hefty extraverted North Carolinian found us out. I think he was quite alert to find his own people (who would have imagined that I would count as ‘his people’).  After admitting that he had my silhouette on his sunset picture he struck up a conversation with Axel, who is always a good pal to chat with. Mrs. North Carolina, with her tightly bound up hair, did not seem to be much of a conversation partner, as she watched the sunset quietly sipping her prosecco.

We drove home to prepare our final odd meal that was entirely made of leftovers. It was a creative affair – what to do with two balls of fresh mozzarella, an end of salami, a chunk of aged parmesan cheese, one misshapen tomato, a droopy bunch of basil, half an onion, lots of garlic, cheap white wine in a carton, 7 raviolis, a container of pesto and another with spicy olives, two droopy bunches of lettuce, a pasta/arugula meal Axel cooked what seemed ages ago and half a container of tiramisu ice cream.

It turned out quite a feast. We made it a TV dinner, plugging the TV in for the first time.  We watched a detective in Italian – we didn’t quite get the conclusion – followed by a serial about fighting the mafia in Palermo – bad bearded Italian men killing each other. It was a variation on the familiar theme of bad bearded Afghan men killing each other, only a little more ingenious and with sexy bare-shouldered women involved. I didn’t get to see the end – Axel did stay on till the end, only to be told that next week’s installment would be the grand finale, without commercials.

Exactly at 9 AM the landlords stood on our doorstep, as we had requested while we still had an image of an early departure and a leisurely stroll through Milan. We hastily packed our breakfast and drove up the mountain to have our odd brunch on a panoramic lookout point that also appeared to be the site of some WWII atrocities. Being in Italy one gets confused about who did what to whom but the tributes to the land’s fallen ‘figlii’ (figlios) reminds you that war is not good for anyone on any side.

Learning from our landlord that it is impossible for foreigners like us without the right paperwork to drive into Milan, and that we would have to park just about where the airport is we decided to drop the Milan idea and drive slowly south along, what we had fantasized, would be picturesque country lanes. The drive would take us through Gorgonzola – why not?

It turned out a miscalculation that I should have known about, from my geography lessons in elementary school. As soon as you leave the Alps you are in industrious northern Italy. Industrious means countless trucks jamming up the roads. Between the roadmap that didn’t have road numbers, our on and off smartphone GPS and the chaotic multi-colored signage at major intersections we got so tied up in knots that we finally gave up our fantasy and heeded the signs pointing us to the Milano autostrada.

We arrived in plenty of time to deliver our car without any scratches at the Auto-Europe/Sicily-by-car car rental place. The Trip Advisor horror testimonials about renting a car in Italy did not match our experience by a long shot. I will write a counter-review to encourage the fearful. Car renting in this country is just as automated and painless as anywhere else in Europe or, for that matter, the US.