17 days in Switzerland and Italy (10) - Varenna (Lake Como), Italy

Lake Como - Varenna

Most people visit Lake Como and stay in Ballegio. We, however, decided to stay in Varenna during our visit. Two reasons: 1) When I did my research, I saw some really nice pictures of Varenna and wanted to spend some time exploring this small town; 2) We needed to catch an early train to Venice after staying in Lake Como for two days. Varenna is more convenient than Ballegio.

My friend Patrick has been to Lake Como twice and each time he chose to stay in Ballegio. Varenna, to him, was just a stop to catch the ferry to Ballegio. I, on the other hand, really wanted to spend some time in this small town because I really like the colors of the town buildings and the steep stairs in the pictures I saw. The town turned out to be as nice as I imagined it to be. Alex and I both really enjoyed our stay there.

With luggage, we decided to stay at a place close to the railway station. There were two choices I compared. One is the Orange House and the other one is the B&B II Bolentino. The first one received a lot of Trip Advisor reviews but the owner responded to my email later than the other one; they also charge extra money for breakfasts. We finally decided to stay in the B&B II Bolentino (156, Varenna, 23829 Italy) though it doesn't have a lot of reviews from Trip Advisor. :) Well, it turned out that both B&Bs are actually located in the same apartment complex. The B&B II Bolentino is facing the main street.

I really liked the B&B we chose: The hostess is a really nice lady who only speaks Italian. It's funny that we tried to understand each other by using gestures and the GOOGLE translator; the host Roberto is an artist, who painted all the paintings hanging in the house. I also really enjoyed the flexibility of be given the keys so we can leave whenever we want to and come back no matter how late it is (though we didn't really go back late). The breakfast is quite simple, usually milk or coffee with a pastry. They also provide some crackers and boxed fruit juices if you need more. Overall, very pleasant experience and I would highly recommend it.

The B&B is really closed to the ferry pier, which is about 100 meters away. From the ferry pier, there's a foot-way for people to walk from the ferry jetty to the village's waterfront and small boat harbor.



It's a really scenic and beautiful walkway. We saw Lake Como towns such as Bellagio and Menaggio on our way. Varenna is quiet and laid back, and we were able to really relax in this quietness. I also saw the steep stairs and of course, tried to climb up and down several times just to experiencing it (well, I later found out that I had plenty of chances to try climbing up/down stairs in Lake Como and Cinque Terre.)

 

We were finally in Italy! Time to enjoy wines and Italian food! We picked a small waterfront restaurant called Bar II Molo so we could have a view when having our early dinner. Alex ordered a Lasagna dish, and I ordered a seafood pizza. The Lasagna tasted really good, so was my pizza (I think the the seafood mix on my pizza was from frozen seafood though). We also tried their house wine, which was the best I tasted in Italy in my opinion.

The view from the restaurant was fantastic, btw.

After an early dinner, we continued walking east towards the direction of Villa Monastero and then turned back to walk uphills to go to the town center.

The town center was really quiet. Not like the other places we visited, here there were not lots of tourists. It was as if we two were the only tourists that wandering around Varenna. Quite an experience and we both really loved it!

If you are the kind of person who likes bars and night lifts, Varenna is definitely not the place to be. But, if you want to have some leisure time just relaxing and enjoying the lake view, I would recommend staying in Varenna for a few hours or maybe a night.