As no one answered the phone Erika held up to her ear, I looked around the cozy confines of our Fiat Cinquecento.

I guess it wouldn’t be so bad to sleep in here, I thought.

On the drive up to Lake Como, we’d stopped for a long time at a Carrefour, to buy a massive amount of food and supplies for our road trip. We’d figured since we’d have the car for so long, we could just keep everything in the car. So no need to just buy for a couple days at a time–we can buy for the whole three weeks!

Now those supplies were piled up in our microscopic backseat, surrounding and drowning Franz and Helga. We’d gotten a ton of food, but since we’d left our camp cooking supplies back in the states after Phase 1 of the trip, we’d had to get some utensils for cooking too. So we got a cheap pot, some coffee mugs, a spatula and spoon, and some tupperware to hold our food–and serve as bowls, incidentally. We still had our sporks from Phase 1–never leave home without those, obviously.

Unfortunately, we’d also left our camp stove at home after Phase 1, so we had no way to make fire. There was an outdoorsy, REI-type store maybe 15-20 minutes from our campground, so we needed to get checked into our campsite, then get ov…

…wait, that’s right, that’s what we were talking about! Sorry.

So yeah, no one is answering Erika’s call. And since we were sitting right in front of the… uh, office?… and could hear the phone ringing inside, well, we were pretty sure no one was there.

Our stop at Carrefour had taken a while, you see. So now we got to the campsite a bit late, and… well, maybe we’re not getting checked in tonight.

When suddenly, a guy materializes from the camper across the path from the “office.” I guess he works here? He didn’t speak English, and we hadn’t had enough time to pick up much Italian yet. But as he gestured and seemed to indicate he had a space reserved for us… sure, here’s my passport, signore.

He took our passports, waved toward the far reaches of the campground, and started to disappear back into his hovel. I guess our protest got the point across that we had no idea where the fuck we were going, so he jumped into his golf cart and led us to our tiny plot, before bidding us arrivederci.

Well, I hope we see those passports again. Hey, at least I have a new one on its way to Milan!

Quick Trip to the Town of Lecco

Our passports were a concern for another day (like, Sunday). Right now, it was time to move–that REI-type store was closing soon.

First, we needed to set up the tent, so that we wouldn’t be setting it up in the dark when we got back. We’ve done that before, it’s no fun.

Then, we drove out to the town of Lecco, where the store was at. Frustratingly, we ended up buying the exact same camp stove we already owned. Why weren’t we carrying that with us while we traveled? It takes up literally no space in the bag. Then we wouldn’t have to spend this extra 30 euros. Being on the tight budget we were on, this was basically me at the thought of blowing 30 euro unnecessarily:

Despite having just dropped that money on the stove, it was late enough there was no way we were cooking tonight. So on the way out of Lecco, we stopped at the brewery La Botte, sat at the bar, and had a wonderful burger and beer.

The Search for Amal

George Clooney has had an absurd mansion in the Lake Como area for a long time now (specifically, it’s in the town of Laglio). So, as we were getting ready to visit the area, we kept joking that we were on the search for George. Hilarious, I know, just bear with me whenever I dive into these little glimpses into our ridiculous relationship, okay?

Anyway, what you may not realize is George Clooney’s wife is far more impressive than he is. She’s just not in all the moving pictures, like he is. Nevertheless, when they got engaged and married, headlines about it tended to be along the lines of “George Clooney is engaged,” “See pictures of George Clooney’s wedding,” “George Clooney got married in Venice.” You get the point. He’s marrying himself, apparently.

Certain clever internet writers took the opportunity to highlight this absurdity. “Internationally acclaimed barrister Amal Alamuddin marries an actor” said one such article, “Accomplished Lawyer Amal Alamuddin marries that actor from ‘ER'” said another. My favorite was Slate’s framing of their engagement, heralding Amal and mentioning that she was engaged to marry an actor “who played ‘Kip Howard’ on the television mystery program Murder, She Wrote.”

So, likewise, eventually our joke morphed into the search for Amal. See, it’s hilarious when I explain the joke in excruciating detail, isn’t it? I understand why you keep coming back to read my material.

Dorsale del Triangolo Lario

The southern part of Lake Como is split into two legs by the Lario peninsula. From the lake shores, the peninsula quickly rises to a high mountain ridge, and along that ridge is the well-known, extremely picturesque hiking trail called the Dorsale del Triangolo Lario, or DTL.

The DTL starts in the small town of Brunate. From there, it climbs to the ridge, and follows the ridge north, before ending at the point where the two legs of Lake Como come together, the very ritzy town of Bellagio.

A common way to do this hike is to start in the town of Como, take the funicolare to Brunate, hike to Bellagio, then take the ferry from Bellagio back to Como. That makes for a long day, however, and we planned to hike again the next day, so we didn’t do all of that.

We didn’t want to pay to park in Como, so instead of taking the funicolare, we decided to drive up to Brunate and park there. Christ, those roads… this was our first taste of really driving in Italy. We’d need this practice now so we’d be prepared for Italy hard-mode when we got down south to the Sorrento area.

Most of the roads are barely big enough for one Cinquecento–never mind the many larger cars–and, they’re two way, so when there’s another car coming it’s a ‘fun’ negotiation. The roads squish through narrow alleys between old buildings, cling to the side of the steep hills as they switch back and forth, dive underneath walkways between adjacent buildings, and generally just demand your full attention at all times. Then, when you come to a town or an intersection, you’re greeted with a billboard-sized sign with the names of dozens of stores, towns, roads, and attractions, at a microscopic font size, telling you which things are which way.

It’s stressful.

Driving the Autostrada isn’t much better. Italians drive fast, and I didn’t, because I’d heard too much about people getting speed camera tickets that basically cost a small mortgage. One blog talked about how about eight months after their trip to Italy, a stream of speed camera tickets rolled in, demanding they pay for their vacation a second time. We couldn’t afford this, so I’m creeping down the Autostrada and receiving the ire and hand signals of the speedy drivers around me.

What the hell were we talking about? Driving to Brunate… right, the DTL! So we parked literally on the side of the road somewhere outside of town, not totally sure it was legit and hoping to find our Fiat still there when we got back.

From where we parked, it was a short–but steep–climb to the small village of San Maurizio. We took a small detour here to the Faro Voltiano, a lighthouse offering panoramic views of Como and the surrounding area.

From here, you keep climbing the hills up toward the ridge. This part of the hike… wasn’t really much worth talking about. It was basically a gravel road for large parts.

But eventually you get up to the ridge, which is definitely worth talking about. The ridge is almost entirely exposed, leaving you walking through fields of tall grasses, in the bright beautiful sunshine, with views of the surrounding rolling hills.

And, views of Lake Como from up on high, as well.

As I’d mentioned, we weren’t intending to hike all the way to Bellagio, so we had to turn around at some point. As it turns out, the perfect time presented itself to us. While we were coming along the ridge, we could see a small group of people on one of the hills way out in front of us. As we got closer, we realized they were flying remote control airplanes.

We made our way to them, plopped ourselves down, and spent the next twenty minutes or so watching them take turns flying their planes. We marveled at the old man taking his turn to fly his plane, as we thought about the fact that he had to hike to even get up here. It was a wonderful destination for the hike, and a perfect spot to turn around and head home for the day.

Greenway del Lago di Como

As I’d said, we had another hike planned for the next day, a trail called the Greenway del lago di Como. It’s a 6-mile trail along Lake Como, passing through the towns north of the town of Como.

The drive up to the start of the trail is beautiful enough. We passed through Como, and wound along the shore of the lake, up to the town of Colonno. There, we scrunched our Fiat into a teeny tiny parallel parking spot on a steep-ass hill, and headed out onto the trail.

This was, without a doubt, one of my favorite walks we did on our whole world trip. It’s a simple walk, rarely climbing or descending at all. But it’s endlessly charming, as it winds its way north through the small lake-side towns. It cuts through adorable cobblestone alleys, tight roads between old houses nestled closely to one another, narrow tree- and bush-lined paths. Sometimes it’s right on the shore of the lake, sometimes its on the hills giving you wonderful views of the lake.

The whole trail is about 6 miles long one way. The wonderful thing is that the main route which the trail largely parallels has a public bus system connecting all the towns. So, you can walk as much of the greenway as you like, knowing that at any time you can call it a day, and grab a bus to get back to where you started from. That’s exactly what we did. We walked all the way to the town of Griante, not quite to the end of the greenway, where we caught the bus to take us back to Colonno and our car.

There’s really not much to say about this walk–it’s simple, like I said. So I’ll just include some of my favorite of our pictures and let them do the talking. I’ve said quite enough in this post already, I’m sure you’ll agree. Seeing these pictures makes me smile–I loved this hike.

Next Time on The Great Italian Road Adventure

As perfectly adorable as the Cinquecento was for camping, our two nights there were more than enough camping for the time being. And hey, we actually got our passports back! We had an AirBnB waiting for us for a couple nights down in the town of La Spezia, which we’d use as a base to explore the famous towns of Cinque Terre. Ciao!