Lake Como has been on my radar for a long time, thanks to George Clooney.
I remember looking at pictures of it in US Weekly and thinking “I wish we could all go somewhere like that!”. And now that we live here, we can. Talk about a dream. I honestly thought I’d never be able to come to Italy. But I’ve been obsessed with it my entire life.
First of all, let me tell you that it was not easy to find somewhere to stay. I spent hours and hours researching and looking. Because we have so many people in our family, we have to get two hotel rooms which is EXPENSIVE.
So I started looking at houses and apartments on flipkey, homeaway, etc. And it was near impossible to find somewhere that did not have a minimum of three nights.
Until I found Airbnb. We were able to rent an entire home in Tremezzo (with a lake view!) for a reasonable amount, and for 2 nights only.
Lake Como is ringed with town after town after town (the most famous-and chi chi- being Bellagio, where countless movies have been filmed and where JFK honeymooned) that you access by ferry.
After J got off of work we started the three hour drive to Tremezzo. Construction, traffic, and other Italian shenanigans turned the three hour drive into a five hour drive.
Let me tell you something about driving in Italy. It is not for the faint of heart. There are motorcyles and bikes EVERYWHERE. No streets are labeled. And as for the streets themselves? They are SUPER narrow. GPS is crucial here. And even that fails you sometimes- as it did Friday night when the main road around Lake Como was completely closed. With no warning.
After some high blood pressure, driving the wrong way on a rotary, and a few arguments…we figured it out. And as we were rounding a bend (and at our wit’s end), we drove by Villa d’Este and saw this over the lake.
Talk about a mood changer. We were all grinning ear to ear and clapping.
We made it to our home around 11 pm. We were a little grumpy that the first night had become a throwaway, but we all needed to get some rest.
Saturday morning our annoyance evaporated the moment I opened up the doors in our bedroom and saw this.
Are you kidding me? When we drove in it was so dark…we couldn’t see anything. So finding this in the morning was a beautiful surprise.
Our little home had the prettiest doorways and views.
the view out the kitchen window (this photo is priceless):
We headed down to the water and had coffee and breakfast. You pay for the view, but it’s okay. It was worth it.
When it was time to catch the ferry we went down the road to Cadennabia to wait. Talk about a beautiful view.
We opted to take the car ferry as opposed to the passenger ferry. It ran more often and we could by a family pass for the entire day (as many rides and towns as we wanted).
We knew we wanted to go to Bellagio first.
We’ve decided to be low-stress and low-key when we travel here. An itinerary will only stress us out so we research, get a basic idea of what we would like to see, and go with it.
Restaurant wise everything is amazing so we just find what we can find.
We wandered the streets for a bit, finding a market (we purchased a wooden kitchen spoon and mortar/pestle) and watching the street performers.
The town of Bellagio is a crazy mix of obvious tourists (think fanny packs,cameras,shorts, and tennis shoes) and well-heeled locals.
I heard the most English that I’ve heard in 2 months. I spoke to two nice ladies from Ohio. But we were the only American FAMILY there. Como isn’t exactly an affordable trip from the US. So needless to say, it’s a couples destination for the most part.
My favorite part of Bellagio was the stairs. They are everywhere. Between shops and homes all up and down the water.
And yes. Five year olds can even have time outs on these beautiful steps.
You wonder how Italians can eat so much pasta and gelato and drink so much wine? It’s called stairs. There are a million to climb to get anywhere. Also? You walk everywhere here.
And walk we did.
All the way to Villa Melzi. Which was possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my 36 years.
I can’t imagine how much work goes into maintaining the gardens. They were immaculate.
We figured after all that walking it was time to reward ourselves with wine, gelato, and pasta. 🙂
We headed to a waterfront lunch.
Another interesting thing is that the girls have all learned how to delicately-ish? drink their water out of wine glasses here. There are no kids cups.No plastic or paper.
And water is all you order here (well besides wine,obviously). You can choose from acqua frizzante (bubbles) or naturale (still).
The next part is a bit of a blur. Let’s just say that we got a tad confused about which ferry to get on. WHY IS ITALY SO CONFUSING.
We rode around and around and went from town to town to town and none of them were our town. I thought Mr. Navigation was going to lose it.
But we figured it out. And we got home and everyone took a nap.
We had a late Italian dinner and I have to tell you that it was the best pizza we’ve had since we’ve been here. And that is saying A LOT. If you ever end up in Tremezzo you must eat at Pizzeria Balognett. Y’all. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
It is in a little house on the hillside.Surrounded by sheep. And the owners grow all their own food there. SO GOOD.
My only tip- get there earlier than we did. We weren’t able to score an outside table but they did have a table large enough inside.
It was a perfect way to end a wonderful trip!
Ciao Ciao!
S
Love, love, love the pic of Sadie having a time-out on those beautiful steps! So glad you’re making the most of your time in bella Italia and just going with the flow.
Beautiful memories lovely to look back on ❤
Stunning and inspiring! I think I’ll take the kids to Europe sooner than later:)
I caught the “Well-heeled” ladies! Perhaps you could do a small segment on Italian shoes for all us “well-heeled-want-to-be-ers”!!
Thank you for the tour, so very fun to experience Italy through your beautiful pictures and amazing narrative!
Blessings, Sharon
Love experience the Howells take Italy through your blog. What a wonderful adventure for your family.
Wow – your pictures are amazing! Love hearing about your family adventure there!
Thank you so much for sharing your adventures. It is like taking a little vacation.
Gorgeousness! Not knowing where I’m going/getting lost gives me huge anxiety attacks, so I cannot imagine how you’re doing it, but y’all are handling it beautifully!!
So gorgeous! My family of 4 tended to have a hard time in Europe finding appropriately sized hotels so we rented apartments as often as possible. We also picked up travel cots from Amazon and brought them with us, it saved $$$ since many places offer additional bedding at an extra cost. Since we drove, carrying them along wasn’t an issue and they folded up to the size of camp chairs. My husband spent so much time researching lodging and used Booking.com and Trip Advisor and read lots of reviews. We never regreted any place we stayed.
You must all feel you’ve died n gone to heaven! You posts are like reading a travel book . . . fantastic! Your stories and photos keep me going until, one day perhaps, I can visit this amazing country again. Keep loving every second.
Sounds awesome. Great pics!!!
I am so in love with your blog right now! Living vicariously through you and it’s magnificent! Thank you so much for sharing with us all!! xo
Oh how beautiful Stephanie. Lake Como is somewhere I would love to visit one day. Your pictures are absolutely wonderful. So glad you all had such a lovely time.
Another wonderful Howell Adventure. What an experience you all are having! Thank you for sharing.
When we lived there, GPS hadn’t been invented yet and it was crazy trying to get around!!
Love, love, love the photos!!!
GORGEOUS!!!!
Dying. I’m dying. One of my dreams is to take my kids to Italy. I want to go back so bad sometimes I dream about it. Until then, I will continue to drool over your photos and live vicariously through you. Literally, my heart is beating faster right now. 🙂
Such beauty! Thank you for sharing! The girls look so happy! Soak it all up! You will be glad you did!
Sounds like a wonderful trip. I seem to remember a post a long time ago about Harper having a gluten free birthday cake. Does she have to eat gluten free and if so, how difficult is that to do in Italy. My daughter has Celiac Disease and while I would love to take her to Italy I am scared that her diet would be so limited and that we wouldn’t be able to communicate her needs.
So glad you were able to go to Lake Como, this was my favorite spot in all of Europe when we had our “grand tour” for work. I can’t wait til I can return. Thanks for posting. Our computer with ALL our pictures loaded on it was stolen and the only pics left from our ‘grand tour” were the ones loaded on the camera. This was b/f iphones. Ha! Love that you are sharing your adventures out and about with all of us stateside. I hope you are not too lonely with the time difference. If you are, hug those girls and J b/c those are the ones that are most dear.
Seriously, woman: LIVING THE DREAM.
Gluten-free in Italy isn’t too much of a problem. It is well-understood there and even quite small supermarkets have gluten-free products. In restaurants potatoes roasted with rosemary are usually an option and in many areas risotto is a common dish on menus. My husband is unable to eat gluten and we’ve visited Italy at least once a year for the last decade, staying in either hotels or villas. We’ve had countless meals out in that time and it really hasn’t been difficult. Naturally, he’d love to eat pizza and fresh pasta, but some restaurants have even been able to give him gluten-free pasta.
I’m sure you’d be fine! I say go for it and enjoy!
Linda-
Harper does not, after all, seem to have a gluten intolerance.
AMAZING!!!!!!!
Oh my gosh I’m so in love with this!
I just went to Italy this summer with my boyfriend. My family lives near Naples and I hadn’t seen them in 12 years. It was an amazing trip! The one place I really wanted to visit (but it didn’t work out this time) was Lake Como. I can’t wait to go back!!
Your blog is quickly becoming one of my favorites 🙂
AWESOME life, AMAZING pictures! Thanks for sharing your adventures in Italy with us. I get to live vicariously through your blog. Hopefully, one day I will get to see it in person.
so glad you’re sharing this italian adventure with us. i loved these photos and reading about your experience so much!