In beautiful May sunshine we arrived at Milan - Bergamo Airport with blue skies and a temperature of 21 degrees. From my previous blog on Bergamo, I did the exact same connection and got the short airport bus ride (€2.40) to the train station.
This time we were heading North West toward Lake Como rather than East towards Lake Garda. We hopped off the train at Lecco and got a connecting bus to Bellagio which was our base for the next 3 days. Arriving in Bellagio was magical, a little bustling town that has a ferry port with access across lake Como to the nearby towns. Our accommodation name was 'Stairway' which we found on Booking.com and it was fantastic. It was on the main street and a 2-minute walk to the ferry port. It was a fairly big one-bed apartment with a balcony.
The first night we walked along the narrow streets and found a lovely place for dinner and enjoyed a few drinks looking out onto the lake. We headed home early as we had planned to climb a mountain that we had seen across the lake, the next day.
After sussing the route out on a trail app, we headed by ferry to the town of Mennaggio. From here we got a bus to Breglia and started our well-marked hike up Monte Grona 1736m. The hike was the guts of 1000 metres with a welcome stop in a mountain refuge for lunch (and wine). We summitted about an hour later which involved some scrambling – it was not for the faint hearted!. From the top was a huge metal cross and majestic views over Lake Como, it was really a fantastic experience, but we had to descend and this took about 2 hours and then probably another 2 hours wait for the bus back to the ferry port. Breglia was a sleepy town, and we were lucky to see an auberge open so we could get refreshments while waiting for the bus.
This excursion was the highlight of our weekend. The next morning, we booked a kayak tour for 9am which was about a 10min walk from Bellagio. There were 6 in the group altogether with double kayaks but luckily, when asked, the guide obliged and let us have our own kayak each. We spent about 90 mins touring the Bellagio coastline and before we departed the guide offered each of us a glass of Bellini. It was a nice touch. The kayak tour was great but overpriced at €67.50 via Get your Guide (€80 on their website) for a short excursion. After the kayak we had a nap and took a ferry to the beautiful town of Varenna. We hiked up to the castle and then enjoyed dinner and drinks before getting the last ferry back.
We enjoyed a final nightcap on the balcony and our trip was just about over as we had to head home the next day. We again got the bus to Lecco, connecting train to Bergamo and back to the airport. It was great as the flight was in the afternoon so there was no getting up early or rushing to make connections. Really enjoy the fact you can go on a Friday and be back on Monday. It really is the perfect weekend Italian escape.
Flights to Milan (Bergamo Airport) operate every Monday and Friday during the summer and during the winter flights operate every Thursday and Sunday with Ryanair.
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