Vota Si to the Lake!

We arrived at Laveno Mombello train station as the sun was setting, and had a minor hiccup when we discovered that no-one (including us) knew where our hotel was.

I eventually managed to persuade another hotelier to let me use the Internet on his computer, and found the address myself, so we were back on the road, enjoying the absolutely BEAUTIFUL sunset over Lake Maggiore.

After many hours of train travel and confusion (when Tom’s new suitcase pull handle broke – yes, he has terrible luck with suitcases, by the looks of it), we were very keen to find our hotel and be able to settle a bit.

This we managed to do, so skipped out in search of another look at the lake and dinner (not necessarily together) with renewed energy.

We succeeded in both, taking our hotel’s recommendation for a little restaurant just down the road. Tom ordered ravioli with some kind of lake fish in it (can’t remember what type).

I ordered black noodles (which had a fancier name than 'noodles' that I can't remember) with lime and fish eggs.

Unfortunately, although they looked fantastic, they were both almost completely tasteless. So we asked the surprised waitress for more limes, and managed to accomplish a bit of flavour ourselves.

Dessert on the other hand? Sublime. White chocolate panna cotta with raspberry filling.

We went for a last wander along the waterfront, spotting some sleeping swans…

And returned to our gorgeous little apartment. I was completely in love with our little rooms.

The place? Laveno 1673, the home of a gorgeous Italian family who rent out three little apartments to holidayers. Couldn’t recommend it more highly.

Anyway, back to our story! The next morning Tom joyfully availed himself of the washing machine. We hadn’t had access to a washing machine since the cruise boat. Then we went exploring.

We found the swans, and their beautiful little cygnets again.

And we got ourselves a pizza to enjoy by the waterfront.

We even managed to catch a wedding party driving past! It was quite a sight to behold, actually. It looked like all of the guests got in their cars after the wedding and drove around after the wedding car tooting their horns. It was an almost ten-minute parade of honking horns!

We even came across an election campaign. Vota si!!

I certainly vota si to Lake Maggiore.

Tom really likes their cars.

It’s truly a beautiful place.

We decided that we had to do something more than just gaze in awe at the lake all day, so we attempted to walk around it.

We passed some interesting architecture. Tom particularly liked the rerouting of the gutter into the upstairs window.

And then the road narrowed to the point where there was absolutely no room for a footpath on either side of it. So some genius (no naming names) decided to go bush and take us up through some scrub on one side of the road (which was probably someone’s land), in hopes of getting past the narrow part of the road.

We did get a few patches of nice view.

And eventually managed to find our way out again and down to what a sign said was a “beach”.

This was the beach. It was a little stinky. I was not impressed.

 

If I focused on the water it wasn’t so bad…

But then I realised that our little woodland adventure had gifted me some kind of a splinter in my foot. Awesome.

So! Once splinter removal had occurred, we made our way back again to more tourist-friendly areas. Not before we had to negotiate the narrow stretch of road again. We decided to make a run for it and hope we wouldn’t be run over. We survived, thankfully!

And then we were back safe again near the lake!

We decided to use the rest of our afternoon more productively, and went in search of a nice little picnic spot with a good view.

We settled on this one. Not bad, eh?

We even managed to compile our own little Caprese salad (we’d visited the supermarket earlier). Jealous yet?

How about now?

And because we hadn’t eaten enough, we then went ‘home’ and cooked up our own dinner. We really pounce on the ability to make our own meals now when the opportunity arises! Months of travelling does wonders for your domesticity!

Main course, pumpkin ravioli in a creamy mascarpone and gorgonzola sauce, with spinach and walnuts. If I may say so myself, pretty awesome!

And for dessert? Strawberries and melted chocolate. Spoilt much?

And that’s where our Lake Maggiore fun ended. The next day (which happened to be my birthday) was the day we needed to make our way to Switzerland. So we had to be up at the crack of dawn – 4:55am to be precise to get to our train (which we conveniently forgot the previous night meaning we stayed up until past midnight cooking and eating).

This is the lake at dawn. Enjoy it.

Nevertheless, we got ourselves to the station on time, very sleepy, but ready (almost) for the next stage of our adventure.

I even got a lovely little last Italian greeting.