Tuesday, 6 May

Brisbane to Bellano, Lake Como

Weather: Bellano - Overcast, rainy patches. Max 17

After 30 hours of travelling Henk, Brian and I arrived at our wonderful destination at the small, lakeside village of Bellano on the shores of Lake Como. It took two planes, a bus and train to arrive on Tuesday evening having left Monday evening in Brisbane. 

Our flight was uneventful but we did remark that we always forget how long it takes to reach Europe until we get onto the plane. It goes on forever! When we arrived at Milan Bergamo Airport we had already decided to take a bus rather than a train to Milano Céntrale (Milan Central Railway Station) and then take a train to Bellano. On buying the bus tickets we were told there was a train strike and it might be finished by five, or maybe six, or maybe seven o’clock. Welcome to wonderful, chaotic Italy!

Just getting onto the bus was an event but as we had bought our bus tickets inside the terminal we had the “golden tickets” which took us to the head of the long, anxious queue and we took our seats for the hour-long trip to the centre. The 4.30pm bus was packed and Henk and Brian had to shove our bags in the already full bin underneath the bus hoping we would find them at the other end. The traffic was heavy due to peak hour and the train strike.

Our aim was to catch the hourly train to Lake Como leaving at 6.20pm after arriving at the station at 5.45pm. We soon learned the strike was over and the station was heaving with people going every which way. We attempted to buy our train tickets at one of the many ticket machines using three different credit cards to no avail so that left us no option but to hightail it to the ticket office. With time against us we broke into three - Brian got into the long line to buy the tickets from a ticket seller, Henk once again tried the ticket machines in the office and I minded the bags. As Brian was about to be served, Henk gave a thumbs up as one of the machines decided to give Henk our tickets and we were soon pushing our way through hundreds of people standing in front of Milan’s huge electronic timetable to get to our far platform. We were on board by 6.17pm with three minutes to spare. Whew! 

The train finally left at 6.35pm after more than 50 more passengers got onto the already crowded train. We resigned ourselves to be standing for the entire hour’s journey to Bellano but 15 minutes later the majority left the train at Monza and we could sit and enjoy the misty valley views with its high, steep mountains down to the beautiful lake and it’s small villages.

We emerged from the train station to a small square, got our bearings and were welcomed by the 8.00pm church bells from midway up the mountain towering over Bellano. Once again, I minded the luggage outside the train station whilst Henk and Brian set off to fetch the apartment key from a key box at the end of the long main street. The village streets were lined with pansies. I didn’t realise when I took this photo as I waited that our grey apartment building is in the centre of this photo. 

We arrived at our wonderful, compact apartment at 8.20pm, happy and exhausted. Our apartment is only 100m from the train station which will be good for exploring over the next five days. Before night fell we took some quick snaps of the view from our balcony. 

The apartment sits over the water, with a small balcony. We did not have the energy to go for dinner so we resorted to the snacks we had acquired throughout the trip, had a shower and we were in bed by 9.30pm feeling like our holiday had now begun. We will be spending six days in Italy before we set off for Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Slovenia for the remainder of the month.