Europe Apr 21 to May 15th 2011: Lake Como

Awake at 8am but stuck to the bedsheets like zombies as it feels like 2am still to us. We get out of bed and head down for a delicious breakfast buffet. Today we are driving north to Lake Como which is right at the swiss border and is supposed to be a beautiful area there. We load the little metal box and plug in some gps cordinates into the tomtom and by 930 we are on the road. most of the journey is on a main freeway and boy did we quickly learn what crazy drivers the Italians are our little tin box is screming as we do 120km per hour we just tried to keep up with the flow of traffic and that's in the slow lane the center lane of the freeway has bmw's, mercedes and audi's rasing past at a much faster speed the fast lane is driven by people in porche's and really high powered bmw's and those have to be traveling at 180 to 200km per hour. after about 30 min on the freeway we pull up at a toll booth and pay 1.90 euro's (about 2.75) soon after passing through the toll booth we start climbing and heading into the mountains, we pass through tunnel after tunnel after tunnel and all at once we come out of a really long tunnel and we are right in the valley overlooking Lake Como

the view is spectacular we are about 500 feet above the lake and the road snakes backwards and forwards along the mountin side down to water level. on the hillsides all around us we can see forests and vineyards and everything is so lush and green. As we drive down the winding road we suddenly see and ancient castle which is literally carved out of solid rock into the mountain side the road we are traveling runs right along the shore of the lake for about 50km and as we drive we pass through lake side villages and towns where the main road is so narrow that 2 cars can not pass we have to constantly pull over and squeeze against brick walls to allow other vehicles to squeeze by us this makes for really slow progress and after only half an hour Glen's nuckles are white with some of the close calls we have.

This area though is absolutely stunning all of the villages along the way are like something straight out of the movies or a fairytale book. As you drive through these villages the houses are really ancient and many of the houses are built with rooms on either side of the road and are connected with an arch bridge across the road with another room on top, so time after time we are literally driving through peoples houses. Lake Como is spetacular and the views are stunning. We pass through on really picturess village and decide to walk around for a while the streets are tiny and are cobbled and every village has a spectacular church within a village square. We find a small restaurant right on the waters edge and decide to have lunch here. its very posh with white linen table cloths and silver cutlery so in find tradition we order a large beer to share and a couple of local dishes off the menu. We end up with a plate of hand made hor dourves and a plate of hand made pasta both dishes are delicious and so fresh. and we loved sitting in the sun eating, drinking our beer and people watching.

Back in the car we carry on driving north along the lake shore passing through village after village looking at spectacular scenery, castle's and churches. We make another stop at a small village and streach our legs along the boardwalk in the water we can see huge lake trout swimming there are dozens of them and they have to be atleast 12 to 18 inches long. There are signs everywhere saying no fishing and no swimming so we are thinking that this lake is well protected and pretty pristine. At one point along the road we pull over to what appears to be a pearmid and when glen climbs up the steps to look inside it's actually a huge tomb for some Italian royalty.

We carry on again and soon we arrive at a bustling little town where we stop to explore it's an ancient town and we head up hill through narrow cobble streets which are so narrow that only a motorcycle can travel along them and we head down numerous alleyways, arches and underground walkways as we explore this ancient mideval town. We come across a 1000 year old stone bridge over a beautiful river and we stop and take photographs it is unbelievably beautiful here we hope that some of the pictures will give you at least some idea of what we saw.