Italy recap: Argegno and Pigra

For a daytime expedition to two very small villages, this will be rather a long post.  No, not because of all the blah blah blah narrative I usually do.  I have a lot of photos to share in the post.  Get seated, and get ready to scroll.

I've already posted about the Lake Como ferries.  We really should have understood better just how awesome a service they are.  Comfortable, providing scenic travel, a good price.  Our first morning at Filario, we decided at breakfast that we would go somewhere that we could get to by ferry.

Figuring out the schedule took a little doing (no, really - we saw it play out many times at the ferry stops that people did not understand the schedule and sometimes had unrealistic expectations about where the ferry went and when and such), but we settled on crossing over to Argegno and just checking the place out.  Onto the ferry

across the lake,

a few stops and sights along the way,

and then we were there.

Argegno had the benefit of not quite clinging to the side of the low mountains and hills surrounding the lake. 

It was a little more than on street deep, in other words.  Not much more, but a little more.  We wandered through the small centre

and made note of a possible lunch option, then headed over to the gondola to take us up to Pigra.

Pigra is a sweet little village.  Village?  Maybe a hamlet.  Wikipedia tells me that the population in 2004 was 294.  I doubt it's grown any since then, but maybe?  There were a couple of places for tourists up there, but we simply admired the views of the lake below

(the gondola rises over 500m),

walked around the place,

and took a number of photos. 

Notable were the many images devoted to cats - it must be their theme. 

Also notable:  a little public library (we didn't go in). 

Further notable:  seemingly abandoned homes. 

On a lark, we afterwards looked up Pigra real estate, and at least one such building was available at a very low price.  Mind you, another home with outstanding views was available at a not-so-low price.  Oh, and kudos to the person with the anti-fascist sticker on their garage. 

Would that we had that perspective here!

Anyway, we came back down and headed for a late-ish lunch at Bistrò Argegno. 

It was a cool place, like a wine shop

that sold food.  The husband (we guessed) of the owner couple seemed gruff at first, but he did recommend a good wine

and brought out a platter of meats and cheeses that was so generous that we couldn't quite finish it. 

He warmed up, though, when we asked him more about the wines and for a recommendation for a bottle to bring back to sip at the hotel.  His wife was delightful, and we talked with them both about how business had been and the weather and such.  We bought a few other things at the store, including the wine (which we didn't end up sipping and brought home with us instead), and headed back to the village centre.  That was the opportunity for Van to get his gelato on Lake Como, and so we did.  I had walnut flavoured,

and I liked it far more than the intense dark double chocolate that the other two had.

Time, then, to head back across the lake!

After a day's adventure, we ventured only close by for dinner, to the Hotel Helvetia Ristorante and Pizzeria.  A negroni before me,

a shared plate of lake fish small bites,

and a simple and tasty piece of lake fish for dinner. 

Not a fancy meal, no, but everything was prepared well and hit the spot just right!

We had a few more days to go along Lake Como, and we knew - and you have seen - that we would be on those ferries again!

Italy recap: on to Lezzeno

I need to say this before anything else:  Conrad deserves so much thanks and appreciation for doing ALL of the driving when we were in Italy.  He drove in cities (Bologna) and on freeways and on those narrow roads clinging to the hills that surround Lake Como.  For that last one, he merits some sort of award.  He got us to our last two destinations (and partway back to Rome, from where we flew home).

And kudos, too, to Van.  I don't think it's giving away any confidences to share that Van, like many, can be prone to car sickness.  No reading in the car for him.  And the front seat is better.  So he sat up there beside Conrad and provided excellent navigation.

Me?  I stayed quiet so as not to rattle anyone, chiming in conversationally from time to time, but otherwise occupying a back seat and reading when the landscape wasn't captivating.  So I did my part, right?

It was a somewhat rainy morning when Conrad went with Van to pick up the rental car.  I got the (heavy) bags down to street, and once we were loaded in, we were off northward.  Our destination:  Lezzeno.

I'll be honest:  the scenery was not amazing for the early part of the drive.  A lot of it was kind of flat, agricultural.  Important to Italy, not a tourist attraction.  That's fine.  But then we neared Lecco, and things got more interesting.  As we passed that town, an arm of Lake Como came into view.  Despite the grey weather, we stopped to admire and take photos.

Lake Como is shaped like an inverted Y.  Imagine the triangle that is formed by the two prongs.  We came up the western shore of the eastern prong (still with me?), rounded the bend, and came partway down the eastern shore of the western prong.  Got it?  Good.  Lezzeno was the community we were headed to, and Filario was the hotel. 

We made it there late afternoon and checked in.

The hotel property includes what look to be residences that either the hotel owns and lets out or that individuals own and the hotel manages and lets out.  I'm not sure which.  Our room was really a two-bedroom, one-and-a -half bathroom townhouse that was on the other side of the pool

from the main hotel building. 

That gave us lots of space, not to mention balcony and patio overlooking the lake.

We could sit there (and I did at least once) watching hotel guests and ferries

and other boats on the lake going by.  We overlooked beach cabanas

that we might have used given some good weather.  Ah well.  A mixed weather bag on the trip, but we enjoyed it all.

Once unpacked, we had no real plans.  Once again, we had a nice dinner booked, but for our first night, we simply went to the beach bar and sat out by the lake, enjoying what was the best pizza I had on the trip

and cocktails all around,

including a Hugo for me. 

Evening closed in,

we grabbed a bottle of wine and returned to the room to relax and read and eventually go to bed.