September 18, 2019

September 18, 2019

Our group is tiring of the steep steps and big crowds of Italy's Cinque Terre so we decide to move on. We pack up and drag our luggage down the 120 steps to street level. We wheel them up the main street to the train station. The pavement covers a river that flows underneath down the center of town. It was once crossed with multiple small bridges giving it the nickname of Little Venice. There are photos on the wall about a flood in 2011 that overflowed this river and devastated the town.

We retrace our journey north along the coast to Genoa and inland to Milan. We liked the wine made from the grapes that grow along the Cinque Terre slopes, so we buy a bottle of white and have a picnic on the ride along with the leftover cheese and crackers from last night. We toast my brother-in-law's grandfather Dominic who may just have once been one of those guys hauling grapes down the steep terraced slopes.

After a couple weeks of power touring, Aimee and I need a vacation, so our group takes a third train north to the Italian Lakes region. These long narrow cliff-lined lakes at the foot of the Alps are inland fjords carved by glaciers during the Ice Ages. We follow Lake Lucca to its intersection with Lake Como at Varenna. There we walk to the dock and take the next ferry across to the town of Bellagio. Our hotel accommodation is just feet from the dock.

After checking in, we have a delicious lunch on the hotel's terrace. Our hunger sated, we stroll the small town, reveling in the crowd-free environment.