Farnsniente

Scott and Karen at lunch

Crossing Lake Como to Villa Carlotta

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in
📍 Tremezzo, Italy

Photos

Trip index

Summary

Took an early ferry to Tremezzo, across the Como Arm of the lake, to Villa Carlotta and its famous gardens. ChatGPT really steered us wrong when we were planning this trip in terms of when the rhododendrons would be in bloom and we (again) missed most of them. Very disappointing! We had a really nice leisurely lunch at the lakeside terrace of a fancy-schmancy hotel then ferried back to Bellagio. “French” dinner at home – foie gras, Camembert, olives, nuts, a few crudités and a delicious chilled rosé.

Details

We wake and the room’s still 74°. The temp outside is 66° but the best the A/C can do is 74°. I open the windows and the temperature doesn’t drop much. Good thermal inertia, for better or worse. 

Since we have a full kitchen we do breakfast in the room. Nice! There’s an Italian stovetop coffee maker but that’s going to require some studying before we try that bad boy. I have to steel my nerves for that. 

Cleaned and fed, we head out the door, down to the ferry ticket office. There’s a dozen or more people in front of us already. Thankfully that’s just four groups (purchases) so before long we’ve bought our tickets to cross over to Tremezzo. 

While we await our ferry, one of the “fast ferry boats” glides into port. With the front and rear curved blades upon which it rides, the vessel is like three times the width of the main boat hull. The blades allow the boat to hydrofoil? to really move quickly. It’s a fast trip but not a “lap of luxury” trip from what I can see. Also, since the blades are below the water when the boat is stopped or going slowly they’ve added structures reaching out from the boat so you can know how wide the boat really is, and so people can board and get off the boat. All very interesting. 

Our ferry’s fine. It’s one of the old school boats that just pushes the water out of the way using brute force. We don’t go terribly fast but the lake’s narrow here so we’re across in no time. We quickly walk the 20 minute walk to Villa Carlotta and buy our tickets. At this garden, again, we’re very much on the late end of the bloom spectrum. Most bushes are well past, but now and again we see a bush that’s in full bloom or one that’s half blooming with loads of more buds waiting for the right time to open up. The rhododendrons are mostly well past but it’s fun seeing their big trunks, knowing that they’re trees, but they’re rhododendrons.  

We do walk the entirety of the gardens and we feel it. Towards the end we’re really ready for lunch and so head for the exit. Karen, bless her heart, thinks we can get out without having to go through the gift shop. Ah, the innocence of youth. (No such luck). 

Where we do get lucky is passing by the lakeside restaurant of a nearby hotel. “Why don’t we eat here?” Karen asks. I have no good reason not to, so we do. It’s a nice hotel (you can get a very decent room for $8,000 a night). That being the case the people watching was fabulous. Looking at the menu I see some things that list 170 and 240. I’m thinking these are the calories. No, this is the price. Per kilo for lobster and whole fish. And our lunch, while pricy, is one of the best of our trip. We just have a Caesar salad (with grilled chicken) and a Caprese salad, but they’re both exquisitely executed. Every table has an attached ice bucket holder, and an ice bucket full of ice and two bottles of water (naturale and frizzante). Very classy. 

Waiting for our ferry back to Bellagio we strike up a chat with the middle-aged couple next to us. Not retired from Columbus, Ohio. They are staying in this city, on the west side of the lake from Bellagio. They tried to get on the earlier ferry but it filled up before they were aboard. And it’s like 90 minutes between ferries! We plan our coordinated moves to be sure all four of us get on this one! Whew! The breeze in our faces and the sun and the views makes the ride over enjoyable. 

In our apartment we change into gym shorts and tee shirts so we can haul all of our “good clothes” to the launderette. We’d stumbled across this nearby self-serve laundry earlier and were headed there now. We know approximately where it is, but this time, when we again find it, we realize it’s attached (physically) to where we’re staying. I’m sure they also own the laundry. It feels good to have all clean clothes again. We’ll be heading home in six days so this is, for sure, our last tango at the washateria.  

We laze around the rest of the afternoon. I do a bit more grocery shopping and we’re set for dinner at home. Karen prepares a delicious spread with veggie crudités, blueberries and strawberries, buffalo cheese with truffle, foie gras, crackers and of course pink wine. Yum and cost effective. We have a bunch left over and say we’d be more than happy to do this again for dinner tomorrow! 

Photos

Breakfast in our apartment. It’s cool out now so we have the windows open. Karen made an omelette. There was some duck fat on the foie gras so she added it to the butter to cook the eggs. Yum! (Do not tell our cardiologist!)
The sun is still low in the sky by the time we get down to the dock to buy our ferry tickets. There’s already a line but it moves quickly.
Tickets bought, we walk around town and do more looking around. It’s a lot like Dubrovnik in Croatia. There are endless stairs leading up to the other main road in the old town. These stairs are every few business across the waterfront.
I got to see one of the fast ferries, a hydrofoil, come in. I didn’t catch it at full speed, way up off the water but they’re cool vessels. Our ferry will not be one of these.
Our ferry also won’t be a car ferry. They have them here and they do carry cars, but mostly they carry the huge numbers of daily visitors who simply much come to Bellagio and get that perfect Insta shot.
Across the lake and into Villa Carlotta we take a quick snap of the villa itself and then head off to check out the gardens. We’ve been here before and know they can have pretty flowers.
Alas, we’re fairly late for the azaleas and the rhododendrons. There are a few bushes with blooms, but mostly they’re past. There are flowers in the form of annuals they’re planted for us late arrivers. We also like the other specimens here, like the giant redwoods.
The area’s crowded with expensive homes, so necessarily there’s an interesting looking house up on the hill, above the villa and its gardens. Very handsome and we’re sure it has an awesome view. George? Amal? Is that you?
There’s a path to see the whole garden and we try to follow that. Part of the walk is through a big olive orchard. It’s fun seeing the trees with the (for now) tiny fruit and the tiny olive flower blossoms.
Since they have gardens here, they also have vegetable and herb gardens. They’re tended to by local volunteers. Sadly, with so many visitors, they had to put up signs imploring the guests not to touch or pick the fruits and vegetables. It now appears they’ve added metal mesh to keep the meddlers out.
We were sad that we missed the rhododendrons, but it’s always fun seeing the trunks of the rhody trees.
Now and again, from the gardens, we’d get a good view of the ever-present Lake Como.
Gardened out, we head back in the direction of the ferry dock. We’re a bit peckish. It’s lunchtime… what to have. Granita with alcohol, sounds intriguing! Alas we don’t do that.
Karen sees a nice looking place, with a lovely outdoor restaurant beside the lake. We opt for that. While waiting for our lunch we look into the room rates here. Trip Advisor website lists some good deals… Rooms that normally go for $8,457 a night for only $1,473. That’s a big percentage discount, but still, yeesh!
Our table has an ice bucket with chilled water, and the usual salt/pepper/olive oil/balsamic vinegar, but also a gol darn olive tree. It still needs some time, but dang.
After our lunch (two really good salads) were delivered we asked our waitress to take a picture of us with the lake (and necessarily restaurant) in background.
Our waitress’s next duty was to help the next table decide whether to have the lobster or one of the whole fish for lunch. Decisions, decisions.
Getting to Bellagio can be tricky, with so many people wanting to go. We jockey for position are are close to the front of the (long) line to get aboard. We make it and so don’t have to wait the 90 minutes til the next ferry.
Taking a ferry into Bellagio (versus the driving in we did originally) give us a different view.
Awesome home made dinner. Foie gras, buffalo camembert with truffle, provolone, carrots, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, olives, nuts, and good local pink wine. Yum. Let’s do this again tomorrow.
After dinner we headed outside to do a bit more sipping while we enjoyed the view. We’re still dressed for doing our laundry (Karen in my swim trunks). Initially she was reluctant to let anyone see this picture, but what a great place to kill (er invest) time. Our room is behind the door and window on the left. The evening temperature was lovely.