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Italy, Chapter 2: Varenna, the Sleepy Village that Soothes the Soul
We left Milan depleted. We were sad, scared, worried and trying desperately to stay optimistic in the face of adversity. The bad guys won but we weren’t going to let them ruin our trip. They just wore us down, temporarily. We were happy to be on the train heading for brighter horizons. Christine promised us that we would love Varenna. It would be just the place to cheer up weary travelers.
And it was! The closer and closer we got to Varenna, the brighter and cheerier the day seemed. The sun came out, the buildings were painted in yellows and golds, the fall foliage burst all over the scenery with bright red and crimson leaves. It was so pretty! The dreary graffiti-strewn city walls passed away behind us. We were in the countryside now and it was beautiful!
We got off our train and hobbled our luggage up the cobblestone streets to our bed and breakfast. Here’s a thing about Christine: She’s a speed walker. Sometimes she doesn’t know where she is going but that doesn’t slow her down at all. She goes even faster in the wrong direction so she can figure it out sooner and report back to us, saving us some steps. However, Teresa and I were not familiar with this method of fearless leadership so we breathlessly tried to keep up and then shook our heads in bewilderment when we ended up very much going the wrong way. Eventually we figured this out and stopped trying to keep up with Christine. But it took a while. We were quite the bunch of pals racing all over in confusion.
Varenna is a little village perched on the hillsides of Lake Como. It is so adorable. It feels like it’s set back in time. There are no Seven Elevens. There are no Big Gulps or Walmarts or chain restaurants. Everything is perfect and quaint and charming. In between the buildings are narrow corridors of steps leading down to the lake. Every corridor is different and boasts a view more beautiful than the last. I could live here. I could seriously buy a cottage and live here forever. It was like coming home.
Our Bed and Breakfast was a gold building and our room was on the fourth floor. No more entry-level windows for us! We were good and high up and we felt it in our butts as we bumped our luggage up four floors of concrete steps.
Outside our window, just a block down was a church that rung it’s bells jubilantly every half hour and not necessarily in the right order. I could swear it rang twenty times at 7am. Time to get up and go to church apparently! Everybody is Catholic in Italy and there are a LOT of churches.
The top left window was ours. In the night, the shutter swung open and made a loud banging noise. Both Teresa and I woke up with a start. We were sure we were getting robbed again and ran around in the dark of our room, checking our luggage to make sure nothing was taken.
Of course nothing was taken but it shook us up for good while and we had trouble falling back to sleep. It’s amazing how much scarier and illogically you can think when it’s dark. In the daytime you are fine but when it gets dark all kinds of things go bump in the night. This is the PTSD I was talking about and it’s still with me now that I’m back in America. I can only imagine what soldiers deal with. We only had one night of terror (not even a night really, maybe a few hours). No wonder so many veterans are suffering. I’m much better now but I’m just saying it kind of stays with you long after you think you are fine.
Anyway, we did sleep and we woke up to a glorious morning in Varenna. We had been expecting bad weather on our trip. That’s what our weather apps predicted when we were back in the states but we had nothing but beautiful perfect fall weather. It was amazing. I cannot recommend traveling in the fall enough. The air is crisp but not cold. You can hike without sweating. You don’t have to wear boots or cart around coats. It’s just pretty. I especially appreciated it since I live in Southern California and I have thin blood and no experience with real seasons.
This is the church that bonged it’s heart out at seven in the morning. Such a cheery little church wishing everybody would get up already and go say their prayers.
I did love this church. I am not Catholic but I think if I lived here I would attend this church faithfully. It was so small but majestic. I especially loved the Amelie-esque painting of a woman saint. I don’t know her name. There is more information here but I can’t seem to find anything since I am a cursed speed reader.
You get it right? Look at this village? Can’t you just see me holed up in some apartment, illustrating books for days without the internet interrupting me? I could be so prolific! My travel mates didn’t think I’d last though. I’d get bored soon they said. I’m not so sure. I think I could take this kind of boredom.
I mean, really. Look at these views. And it snows sometimes! Imagine the fun of that!
If you get bored of Varenna you can always hop on a ferry to Bellagio. The real Bellagio that the casino was named after in Las Vegas. I like this Bellagio a lot better. They don’t have any fancy waterfalls synchronized to music but it is not a loss at all.
Everyone is stylish in Italy. All the time. All the men wear tapered pants and funky socks. Even the grandfathers and boring professors, police men and gardeners. I bet even the thief who robbed me was wearing very cool shoes and a sporty jacket. It’s just the way it is. I learned very quickly that my hole-y jeans and white t-shirt were three shades of snoresville.
In Bellagio we had lunch. We cheered with Apperol Spritz, like you do. It was very delightful and the pasta was always al dente. We had caffé lungos after lunch which is espresso with a bit of water so you get more volume. The Italians know how to do coffee. We all knew that but seriously, it is the BEST. They don’t have paper cups. Everyone gets glass. They don’t serve anything large. Twelve ounces is for those disdainful Americans. You get a wee little cup and you will appreciate that wee little cup.
I did! I really did. Even in the airport I got a cappuccino and it was the best cappuccino ever. I just loved Italian coffee. Not unlike how I loved Parisian coffee. Maybe I just hate American coffee.
Then we shopped. I bought a lot of really nice handmade items for friends and family back home. I love supporting the local artists and Italy has them in loads. No imported crap from China here. You can actually talk to the artisan about his work for as long as you like and then he’ll wrap it up for you in a pretty red package! I was in love.
Up and down the corridors we trekked, getting buns of steel as we went.
There were so many nooks and crannies to explore. No main drag or strip mall in sight. Just little shops and coffee bars, tiny restaurants and apartments with laundry hanging outside their windows. If you looked up charming in the dictionary it should have a picture of Bellagio and Varenna.
We ferried back to Varenna after our little day trip to Bellagio and sorted out where we should have dinner…
Pizza, drinks or panini anyone? We didn’t eat from this little panini truck but if I lived here I would.
Of course I had to have gelato and it was delicious! Sadly, gelato and ice cream are wasted on me. I have sensitive teeth and even though I love the taste, I don’t completely love the experience of my teeth being frozen off. But I took one for the team. Bug told me I had to have stracciatella because she read the book “Love and Gelato” last year and has been a huge gelato fan ever since. It was pretty good but I really loved the lampoon (aka raspberry) too. Most of all I loved the view of the boats where we sat on a cobblestone curb and ate our gelato. I could get used to that.
That night we ate dinner on the water too. The food wasn’t as amazing as it usually was but we didn’t care because we had seats RIGHT ON THE WATER! How often does that happen in America? Not very often. We shut the restaurant down, talking late into the night and drinking wine.
It was all so peaceful. Nothing like Milan.
The next day we had breakfast in this cute little restaurant that cinched my love affair with Varenna. It was so charming! It reminded me of Zinc back home but a thousand times better. There was no fancy expensive marble counter top. Just regular formica and the exposed brick of a hundred years ago. A sparkly chandelier hung from the ceiling and pretty bottles lined the walls. It was an Instagrammers dream. Nothing fancy individually but everything together fancier than anything I could dream up.
Breakfast was amazing. All that on a cookie sheet. See why I could live here? Le sigh.
After breakfast we took a hike up the hillside to visit a cemetery. I would love to be buried here with that amazing view. My relatives would love to come visit me and picnic on my grave! But Christine told me sometimes cemeteries have 30-year reservations and after 30 years they can dig you up and move you to make room for new dead bodies. Can you imagine that? They dig you up after 30 years and if no family member claims you and buries you somewhere else, you are moved to some mass grave and forgotten?!! What? That seems crazy. I think I’ll just be cremated and save everyone the trouble.
The cemetery was very small and most of the people seem to have died in the 50’s which is long after their 30-year eviction notice so maybe they are lucky or just well cared for.
After the cemetery Christine and I attempted to hike to a castle further up. We weren’t intending to hike all the way up to the castle but we ended up doing it anyway because Christine is a speed hiker and I am competitive.
It was a really pretty hike. The path was narrow and winding along narrow crevices that opened into breath-taking views. Every once in a while we would happen upon an alter to the Virgin Mary and there were little notes and pictures stuck to it. It was amazing to me that so many people had taken this hike, maybe as a pilgrimage to pray for their loved ones. I think it’s a really beautiful way to deal with grief. A lot better than anti-depressants.
Just be outside in all this beauty and take it in. It heals the soul. But all that view-taking-in made us late and we had to run down the mountain like crazy mad billy goats to catch a train! Christine sped-hiked and I practically threw myself down the mountain with flying dirt and gravel leading my way. It was pure comedy. I have a twisted tendon on the back of my knee for a souvenir.
But of course we made it. And then we were off to Venice!
Next up: Venice
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Italy, The Trip that Broke Us: Chapter 1
I’m back from Italy and I’m sitting here realizing that I’m a completely different person than who I was when I left. Frankly, I think I’m experiencing a little bit of PTSD from this trip and what happened to us. It’s been really hard to process and part of me wants to just not blog it, like I do with all negative things: Pretend it doesn’t exist. If you don’t have something nice to say (or funny, you can say not-nice things with humor) then don’t say anything at all, right?
But my trip to Italy was an amazing trip also. There are lots of parts I do want to blog. I saw so many sights, I took so many pictures. I want to share! I have a lot of good stories too but unfortunately I can’t tell the good stories without including the bad stories because they shaped every part of this trip.
So this is my story:
On the day we left, the Santa Ana’s blew in hard and tore off a limb off our front yard jacaranda tree. I was a mess of nerves and excitement, filming the wind damage and dancing around with glee that I was leaving soon on a girls’ trip to Italy. I hardly slept the night before I was so excited. I LOVE ADVENTURE. But I was also full of anxiety, did I pack the right things? Did I forget anything? Would I have everything I needed? Check, check and re-check.
This trip came up out of nowhere, it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Our friend Christine wanted company on a trip to Milan for business purposes. She’s spent all last year in Italy and is pretty fluent in Italian. My other friend, Teresa, is a travel agent. We put it all together and decided we’d take a girls trip of a lifetime! It all happened so fast I didn’t get time to buy trip insurance which is ridiculous . I figured it would be fine. Every other trip I’ve ever been on has been fine.
But it wasn’t. Note to travelers: always buy trip insurance. You have no idea what could happen to you.
The night before our trip Payam bought me a new backpack. An expensive one that was really cool. I was going to buy it for myself but he swooped in and bought it for me like the generous loving boyfriend that he is. You can see it up there with the big gold clasp. I took a picture of my luggage while we waited for our flight because I was worried it might get lost and I would need a photo to show to the airlines if they needed to track it down. Funny, that was what I was worried about.
I don’t know why I thought I needed a backpack. Backpacks are really not that great for traveling. But I didn’t know. I thought it was just what I needed to carry my laptop and my camera. It worked pretty well, at first.
Our flight was long and uneventful. It was really hard to sleep but what else is new, right? Long flights are always hard to sleep through. The arm rest gouges into your back when you turn sideways, your legs cramp up, it’s cold…everything is uncomfortable.
But who cares! You’re traveling across the world and it takes time! We were off and I was excited.
Finally, we arrived in Milan and a van picked us up to take us to our Airbnb. My eyes were bugging out of my head, wanting to see everything at once. Maybe the car wreck in the oncoming lane should have been an omen of things to come but then again maybe the limb of our jacaranda tree getting ripped off could have been an omen. Maybe I don’t really believe in omens.
Some Prius-like vehicle was upside down in the oncoming traffic lane and it’s front was badly smashed in, most likely a fatality. Sirens wailed and traffic backed up for miles. This was my first impression of Italy. I remember thinking that drivers were pretty aggressive in Italy. Our taxi driver drove very fast, dodging in and out of lanes with complete ease. It was just another day in Italy for him. For me it was whack-a-doodle bananas. But at that point I was strung so high everything seemed whack-a-doodle bananas.
When we got to our Airbnb we met Christine and she whisked us off to see the sights and get dinner out. I don’t remember feeling at all afraid until we got to the Duomo. It was very crowded. Kind of like when I visited Notre Dame in Paris and gypsies and pick-pocketers swarm you. You’re staring up at this giant church, ogling it’s massive presence and then suddenly you feel someone putting corn in your hand. I didn’t know what to do. Why did I suddenly have corn in my hand?
“Feed the pigeons!” a man said to me, standing right next to me. So I threw the corn in the air for the pigeons. “No!” he shouted. “Hold out your hand to the pigeons.” So I did and some pigeons started landing on my hand. It was kind of cool and crazy. I tried to take pictures of the pigeons in my hand but my camera was too close. It was a really weird experience but I felt a little vulnerable because I was so distracted. I couldn’t be sure someone wasn’t going to swipe my bag or my camera and my friends were calling to me to leave before the man demanded money for his pigeon trick. Somehow I got out of there.
We walked around and looked at everything. It was all very overwhelming and exciting. I definitely had stimulus overload but in a good way. I love seeing new places for the first time. Everything is new and different.
This fruit stand and gelato truck intrigued me with their freshly roasted hazelnuts and coconut fountain. Have you ever seen a coconut fountain? Not me!
We walked through the galleria and I spun around for good luck on the golden bull. What a funny tradition. It didn’t really bring me good luck but I got a kick out of it.
After a delicious dinner (that I unfortunately don’t have any photos of) we walked back to our Airbnb and settled in for the night. I couldn’t sleep of course. I mean, how could I?!! I’m in Italy and it’s so exciting!
Somehow I got to sleep but then at 3 am I heard some noises outside so I got up to investigate. We had left our window open a crack because it was stuffy in our bedroom. We were on the ground floor but our window was a good six feet up from the sidewalk outside. For some reason it never crossed my mind that it was dangerous to leave our windows open. So at 3 am I peeked out the window to the street outside. I saw a man moving trash cans around, making the noise that I heard. I thought it was strange that he would be putting trash cans outside at 3am but I figured he was a custodian of some sort and maybe that’s how things worked in Italy. I do remember the man saw me. We made eye-contact.
Then I went back to bed. I slept fitfully, waking up half an hour later. I don’t know what woke me up but I remember staring at the door of our bedroom into the living room. It was open about half a foot. I remember thinking I saw something in the dark. A shadow moving. I couldn’t be sure. I told myself my eyes were seeing things and continued to stare at the door to see if it would happen again. It did happen again. I got up thinking maybe it was Christine doing yoga or something, though that was kind of a weird thing to do in the dark.
When I got to the living room I knew something was wrong. The living room window was wide open (not at all how we left it) and the contents of my purse were splayed out across the couch. My purse was there, my passport was there and my credit cards and driver’s license were there. My moleskin full of sketches was there and even my small pencil bag full of pens was still there. Everything else was gone, including the 300 euros I had gotten out for spending money. Even the cheap pleather card holder that I kept my license in was gone. Why would they go to the trouble of removing my cards and take the pleather holder? It was very strange. Maybe the thief didn’t want to leave me high and dry.
I ran to wake up Christine in the other room. I shouted, “We’ve been robbed!” Everything became a blur after that. I ran into our room to see if anything had been taken. My backpack that held my laptop and camera was gone. Everything except my suitcase and my phone that was plugged in under the counter was gone. I was lucky. I had my phone, my passport, my driver’s license and my credit cards. But I lost my laptop and my camera and my new fancy backpack that Payam had just gotten me. The sadness hit me like a ton of bricks.
I must have interrupted the thief because he didn’t make it to Teresa’s stuff or to Christine’s room that was separate from ours. He only got my things and snagged Teresa’s sunglasses that had been sitting on the dresser near the bedroom door. Everything else was left untouched.
Christine called the police and stammered through a police report. It was really hard to communicate over the phone. Interpreters were involved and the phone connection was really bad. Christine kept hearing her own voice play back at her. Police in Italy don’t exactly operate the same way they do in the US. They didn’t seem to think it was necessary to come and asked us to come into the station the next day to create a report. That was no good for us because we had train tickets to go to our next destination the next day and all of our travel plans hinged on getting there on time. This was a royal kink in our plan.
We were pretty freaked out. Everything was scary. I remember thinking the thief could come back at any moment. Here we were, three women feeling kind of helpless, shocked and vulnerable. Were we targeted? Was it the trash man I had seen at 3am? Had someone followed me from the Duomo? So many questions. I just wanted to get out of there.
Two policemen did come and we made a report but they didn’t speak much English and they didn’t really have anything encouraging to say. I told them the story. I showed them the footprints on the windowsill that was not more than three feet from where I slept. We surmised that the thief must have come in through the bedroom window (right by where I was sleeping) and left out the living room window. It was so creepy to realize someone was staring at me when I was staring back at them in the dark.
The Airbnb owner came to help us communicate with the police and tried to comfort us. He told us nothing like this had ever happened before but I’m not sure I believe him. He did seem really nice and worried about us. He stayed for a while but eventually left us. We didn’t know what to do. We waited until dawn and then left for the train station.
The picture above is the couch that my belongings were strewn across and the window on the right is the window that I peaked out and that the thief entered through.
I vowed that I wouldn’t let this robbery ruin my trip. My heart was broken that I had lost my camera because I wanted to spend this trip taking pictures. The fact that my laptop was gone was a huge blow financially but I knew I could start over. I had made a manual back-up before I left and everything would still be there when I got back. It would just be another big purchase that I wasn’t counting on at all. This trip to Italy may have been the most expensive trip I have ever taken.
But all is not lost! Next up:Varenna, the sleepy little village that healed my soul.
