Day 3 - Travel To Bellagio

We returned to the airport via water taxi and bus, where we picked up our rental car, a Ford Fiesta that looked like it had been in a bumper car race. After documenting all it's dings and confirming them with the rental agent, we were off to Peschiera del Garda to pick up Amarone wine for Kent. His only request from us after being so kind and generous and purchasing our airline tickets with his frequent flier miles so that his wife could spend her fiftieth birthday in Italy with her friends. 

At the Zenato winery while we were tasting our wine, the owner, Carla Zenato came in. Although she spoke very little English, Tina who was helping us with our order was a very helpful translator. After purchasing our wine for Kent, several bottles to drink on our trip and chatting for quite some time, Carla graciously offered us a bottle of Rigoletto in celebration of our fiftieth birthdays.  Beth was so moved that she began to cry.

When we left the winery we drove down to Lake Garda where we enjoyed the view and had lunch and caffe macchiatos. After that we attempted to drive to Borghetto, based on a recommendation from Tina. We entered the address in our GPS (that we have affectionately named Vera) and we were off, winding our way throughout the countryside where we saw a large old castle on the hill. Still following our directions from Vera, we began traveling on a gravel country road.  We saw a farmer with his tractor over part of the road, but Mary tells Donna that Vera says to keep going so we passed the farmer and continue through what turns out to be his farm yard and a dead end.  Using my Minnesota born farm girl logic, I refused to follow Vera's directions over the hill and down the rocky cliff on a road that only exists in Vera's electronic mind.  When we back up to turn around, we stop next to the very bewildered farmer to tell him we are looking for Burghetto but I call it Burnato and he is very confused. He makes a very valiant attempt to help us, but finally he tells us 'non capisco Anglais' and we drive off. It reminded Mary of the movie 'Rat Race' and she said, "We should have bought a squirrel".

We continued on to Varenna, where we took the ferry over to Bellagio, located on Lake Como. To describe Lake Como, imagine the water as two legs and the torso of a body.  Bellagio is the north tip of land (the crotch) between the two legs.  Looking from Bellagio over the lake you can see the Swiss Alps. We strolled around the elegant town and enjoyed the exquisite gardens where tulips were in full bloom. We ate dinner at Ristorante Bilacus, rated 2 out of 37 restaurants in Bellagio. We enjoyed caprese salad, pasta bolognese, linguini with giant prawns, penne with salmon and parmigiana risotto.  

We returned to our hotel Excelsior Splendide.  It is a renovated palace built in 1907 located right on Lake Como.  Our room was on the third floor and had a beautiful view.