Venice to Lago Como

After two full peaceful days in Venice it is back into the ice-cream truck for the trip up to Lago Como which is not too far away, about 3 hours. We all woke up quite early at about 07:00 and were on the water bus before 09:00 well before our water bus tickets expired so although they were kinda pricey to start with, I think that we have had good value out of them.

I wanted to stop for a bite to eat at about 11:00 but Caron made me hold out for 12:00 when we pulled into a One-Stop equivalent for some coffee and to get some ready-made sandwiches which proved to be of very poor quality. The service stations here are definitely not up to the one-stop standards.

Caron keeps on getting road grime from the car on her clothes and had a mini-meltdown so we resolved to find a car wash as soon as possible. Personally, I think she was lolling over the bonnet of the caddy trying to attract the attention of the owners of the Lamboghini and Ferrari parked just next to us. Moving on ... we eventually found a automated car wash place and it's really pretty cheap here, 6EUR, but it is the giant spinning mop type rather than a high pressure blast. Fortunately I am not too concerned with the paintwork on the caddy so in we went and it's a bit like a conveyor belt that drags the car through the tunnel while the cleaning happens. I was in the middle of the car wash when I saw the left wing mirror ripped off its mounting by the mop. We spent about 30minutes with the car wash proprietor trying to put the springs on the mirror back after the wash had finished. I was not very amused at all.

While we were driving we were both feeling less than well and I think that it is due to the pollution which is pretty severe. In fact it's the worst pollution that I have seen since New Delhi in India and the pollution in Johannesburg is nothing in comparison.

As we climbed away from Milan and up to Lago Como the pollution decreased and we were greeted with this sight from the balcony of the apartment that we will be staying in.

That's the town of Varenna on the spit of land. Very beautiful, one understands why people rave about it.
Andre and Nicki were delayed and only arrived late in the afternoon so we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and reading and generally enjoying the surroundings before a simple pasta supper and early bed.