Images from today are in the link above ⬆️⬆️⬆️
I had trouble sleeping on Thursday night. It might have been to do with the hard pillow, or it could be thinking about the next part of our journey. Friday, day 5, involved getting up relatively early for breakfast before heading back to the Stazione to catch the Intercity 666.
I think the number 666 had cursed our journey. The train made random stops at undesignated stations and stopped in dark tunnels due to a broken down train further down the line. The train had to be re-routed so it took far longer to get back to Milano Centrale. This caused a problem with our hire car as someone on the online chat said I had to tell the office in Milan that we would be delayed. If we didn’t do this our hire car could possibly be hired out to someone else….but trying to get hold of someone at Enterprise, to tell them we were delayed, was a nightmare. I eventually got through to someone in the international (roadside) assistance department who gave me a direct number for customer service that I could call. The Italian guy was super helpful and took all my details and phoned through to the Milano Centrale office who said they would hold the car for us.
We arrived at Milano Centrale and a ten minute walk took us to the hire car company. It was just in time too, as people behind us were told that there were no other cars left. I’m just glad that we had contacted them beforehand.
Leaving Milan wasn’t my most favourite drive. I was getting used to a) a new car; b) left hand drive; c) manual gearbox; d) impatient drivers. It took a while for me to get used to this new combination but I soon got the hang of it. This was a good job because I had to negotiate some pretty tight corners and narrow roads up to Griante, on the banks of Lago Di Como.
Because of the late train, delays with the hire car etc, we didn’t have long after checking in at Grand Hotel Cadenabbia before we had to get the ferry to Bellagio. We had a booking for a restaurant that I had previously researched. It was advertised with views over Lago Di Como, so didn’t want to miss this. I always like to plan ahead, so we have a few restaurant places booked. The day’s long journey made it difficult time wise, but we got to the ferry in time. The ferry cost €18.40 for two return tickets and only took ten minutes to cross.
https://www.navigazionelaghi.it/en/tickets-and-timetables-lake-como/
At the other side, Google Maps said that the walk to the restaurant was mainly flat. Well, it meant walking up loads of cobbled steps, followed by another uphill walk….
At this point the day could only get better and it certainly did when we arrived for dinner at La Terrazza Restaurant at Hotel Belvedere, Bellagio. We experienced being served the most exquisite menu by fabulously knowledgeable waiting staff. Not only that, we had the most amazing views over Lago Di Como. I could not rate this place highly enough.
https://www.belvederebellagio.com/en/la-terrazza-restaurant
We left feeling very happy with the evening’s events and left seeing that the sun was going down over the mountains. I knew this was an opportunity to take some snaps over the lake. It was pretty special and I helped out others by taking photos for them too.
As we had a bit of time before the ferry, we decided to try out a bit of local wine tasting. We had passed Enoteca Cava Turraciolo on the way up the cobbled steps to La Terrazza. This place had many different wines and the server asked lots of questions before giving us what he thought we would like. The place was very quirky in that we sat out on a small table and bench that had been built to fit the steps. Service was great and we were also given some bresaola and bread to go with it.
We were mindful of ferry timings and decided to catch the next one back to Griante. Once back there, we spent a short time at the outside rooftop bar of the Grand Hotel Cadenabbia whilst listening to 70s disco classics and sipping Italian gin. Perfect.
jctraveller 
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