Operation Suisse boarders

So we left our flowery seat in the south to head north, well north Italy anyway. Driving through the To the Lake Como region. Along the way we stopped at an Autogrill to fill up with petrol and get some lunch. Autogrill is awesome, imagine like a BP service station that has amazing coffee and buffalo mozzarella and proscuttio paninis, brilliant. The only problem is there's no English at these places so the first time you have to work out that you pay for everything at the register, then go to another counter and someone rips your receipt a bit depending on what you're picking up. When I say "the only problem is there's no English", it reminds me of a joke I read in this book on the flight over, 1000 Years of Annoying the French. What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks 1 language? English...anyway makes me feel pretty slack. Surely the next overseas trip we have I will make more of an effort to learn some more local vocabulary.

We arrived in Lierna, drove up the street our BnB was on with about 3-4cm of clearance on either car door window and checked into our BnB and met our host Daniele. He was an older version of our BnB host from Sorrento. Runs a good BnB, worried about trip advisor reviews, sometimes alluding to be slightly jaded with the wife, but a funny guy over all. He kinda looked like Frank Pentangeli from The Godfather.

After getting some tourist maps and a quick walk around the small town of Lierna where we were staying, we got the hourly train to the next town called Varenna. We went for a walk around the township there and along the boardwalk which was called the lovers walk. I assume because the fence is painted red and it's pretty scenic. The town is really pretty and the houses are similarly colour schemed to the ones in Cinque Terre. The main difference though, is that there's actually grass and really well maintained gardens around the place.

Eager to try some tippici della region cuisine we did some research and settled on this place called Borgovino. It was a small cave like place nestled into one of the tiny alleyways and just had 2 tables on the pedestrian street. We had some missoltino (salted fish from the lake) with polenta, fish with sage rissotto and bistecca tagliata with porchini. It was one of the best Italian meals I've had. Everything was really delicious. I may have to start salt drying my own fish at home.

Heidi in the laneway.

The lake fish risotto and steak and porchini

Salted fish

The lovers walk

Aussie flag! and some ducks

The following day we had breakfast and a nice chat with Daniele and worked out that to get to Bellagio we could catch the twice daily ferry there. The ferry ride was nice the Lake Como district is extremely picturesque and I always love being on the water so it was a great start to the day. We sailed into the port with all of the grandiose hotels and went for a walk. There were some seriously well maintained residences and hotels and the whole place looked like it would cost a pretty penny to stay there. Heidi had to do a bit of work so we found a place with the wifis and a had some pizza.

Bellagio

Bellaheidi

Once Heidi wrapped her work up we had a couple of hours to kill so we found a vino cave. This place had on the menu a wine degustation of Lombardy wines. Since we are all about the tippici della regione and we love vini we decided that this would be a great place to wait out the ferry home. After we got the ferry home we tried to go to a bar to watch the Australia vs Netherlands game, but the sleepy little town we were staying in the bars were only showing the later games. Goddamit.

After another breakfast chatting to Daniele I wanted to go for a drive to Campione. This is a small territory owned by Italy but was in Switzerland on a lake the the Swiss and Italians share. Heidi asked what is there and why do I want to go to it for? I said because it is hilarious that we can go into Switzerland and then be in a little Italy again. Heidi sighed at me again and we were soon on our way. When we got to the Suisse boarder we found that there was a boarder controll force with Suisse police. I at that point realised that we had left our passports back in big Italy. Luckily we were waved through by a guard that eyeballed me all the way. I rolled through the boarder with the car's gear in neutral as is the local custom I believe.

In this part of Switzerland everything is pretty much like not leaving Italy. They are still growing grape vines, all the signs are in Italian for the shops. The town names are all Italian sounding too. Soon we we  in Campione. We discovered at the local carpark that they like surrounding their cars with waterbottles. We weren't sure if this was a tipici della regione but I have never seen anything like it before. After a wander around the small village we just had a snack and tried to get into the massive Casino. Apparently what Campione is known for is a tax haven and a mega casino. Anyway turns out the casino operators were tougher than boarder countrol as they wouldn't let us in without passports. Our dear leader Tone Abbott would be so proud of them.

Waterbottles to protect the car

Our local MP Albo apparently moonlights in Campione

We drove back from Italy through Switzerland then back to Italy without any real checkpoints, same building on opposite side of the road but with one Italian guard and no one being searched. I guess a country with no ports in the open seas you want some additional checks for people coming in. We went for dinner in Lierne at one of the local restaurants. This had a really nice view was pretty good but I think we were a bit spoiled from the amazing food at Borgovino the previous night.

Tipici vista

Tipici pasta e risotto