Our life on the boat and the bus in Como

On day 2 of Como we weere successful in our quest to get out of the room at a decent hour. We stopped off at a local cafe to fuel up for the morning. Tim and Michelle had their usual cappuccino and sweet treat. Greg ordered a small pizza and Brenda had a cappuccino and a sweet treat as well. At the boat dock we bought tickets for the slow boat that would take 2 hours to get to Bellagio. The nice part of the slow boat is that it makes more stops to the small villages and you can really see the lake houses from the boat. Michelle is facinated by these little houses that are built so close to the shore and have the boat equivalent of a garage on the shorline. So you can open your boat door and pull right in underneath the house. We assume there are steps up to the house from inside the slip. All of the houses and the slips have their own character, there are no track homes, which makes it even more fun.

On th boat Brenda and Greg wanted to sit outside. Michelle and Tim opted to stay inside. Being outside with the wind constantly in your face is a bit draining, and Michelle already felt wind beaten enough after her experience on the boats in Venice. To be inside with the same beautiful views was good enough for her. Once inside Tim and Michelle met two women from Ohio. They were traveling minimally (3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, wash your clothes at the end of each day in the sink) and were enjoying their trip for the most part. They were having the most trouble with figuring out the train system, so Tim tried to give them a heads up on how to navigate it. It was fun to feel like we could make someone elses trip a little easier. 

Once at Bellagio we got off of the boat. Bellagio is a cute small town where the streets are a bit like a checkerboard but it is all uphill. So you have some streets that are flat, but they intersect with streets that are basically stairs going up, up, up. There is some shopping to be had, but most of it is too expensive for our tastes (600 euro leather shoes anyone?). Brenda and Greg did buy a cool wine bottle opener made of olive wood and we did have a nice lunch at one of the restaurants overlooking one of the steep streets. 

We decided that instead of taking the slow boat back to Como we would opt for the bus. This is something we did with Tim's parents the last time we were in the city. For roughly $4 per person you can go on the wildest bus ride of your life. Drop off cliffs, quick corners, head on traffic and a bus driver who is not afraid of it all makes for a better ride than anything you can find at Disneyland. :) And if you can get on the right side of the bus when you sit down you can see some amazing feats of engineering as you try to figure out how the Italians were able to build that house on that cliff without it all falling into the lake. This time Tim and Michelle were on the left side, Brenda and Greg were on the right. Which was a good thing, because the view would have been wasted on Tim and Michelle since they shortly fell asleep on the bus. They woke up back in town when Brenda said "Hey guys, isn't this our stop?". "Yes!" we jumped up saying, a bit to loudly and with too much panic in our voices for fear of missing the stop. Only to discover that about half the bus was also getting off, and there was no need to rush.

Back in town we opted to go to the same restaurant downstairs from our hotel again. Tim had a different pizza this time, Michelle had the same salad but with slightly different toppings. It is rare to find a big salad in Europe, so she was not going to miss out on the second opportunity. Once our bellys were full we went back to the room. The original plan for the next day was to pack up and go to Milan overnight so that we could go to the Science museam there. The Milan Science museam is actually a really cool one with replicas of Michealangelo's inventions so that you can see what they would have looked like and how they worked. It also has other exhibits on science and the history of various technologies (phones, electricity, musical instruments, energy, trains, planes, boats etc.). Since Tim and Michelle are not fond of Milan, and Brenda and Greg really liked Como, and the museam was the only real reason we were going to Milan we decided to make it a day trip from Como instead. So Tim would stay in Como and work to find us another place to stay (since our current hotel could not accommodate us for one more night) and Greg, Brenda and Michelle would go to Milan to see the museaum. When Tim was able to find logging then he would email with its location and we would head over that way. Splitting up is always an adventure, so we will see how it goes!