First visitors

While we were getting settled into our apartment this spring and summer, we welcomed many visitors from the United States to Lecco. Nothing motivates you to unpack boxes like having people visit your new home!

Our RVing friends Cindi and Roger—with whom we isolated on their ranch in rural Utah for five months during the 2020 Covid pandemic—were the first to arrive, a mere eight days after we did. (In fairness, when they first made their plans, we were expecting to move a week earlier, until Cheryl’s visa was delayed.) We met them in Tirano, where they arrived from Switzerland on the Bernina Express scenic railway, and then took the train with them back to Lecco. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see much of Roger after that, as he wasn’t feeling well, but we took Cindi on a chilly ferry ride to Bellagio and Varenna, and enjoyed meals and gelato with her before she and Roger left a couple of nights later to tour around central and southern Italy.

About three weeks later, more long-time RVing friends Julie and Marc (better known in the RV world as RVLove) came to visit. We enjoyed another trip to Bellagio, this time with perfect spring weather, and some time exploring around Lecco.

In mid-May, I (David) turned 65, and my birthday present was eight days in Italy with our children, Lauren and Indi, and Lauren’s husband Tom. We flew them in from the United States, and together Cheryl and I enjoyed showing them around our new home. In addition to visiting sites in Lecco itself, we took the Lake Como Ferry to Bellagio; rode the funivia (cableway) up to Piani d’Erna, a mountain park in the shadow of Mount Resegone, about 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) above Lecco; went by train to Bellano to stroll through the Bellano Orrido—a beautiful 15-million-year-old natural gorge through which the Pioverna River cascades down multiple waterfalls—where we met up with my cousin Nikki and her new husband Adam, who were honeymooning on the lake; and spent a day in Milan touring the historic Sforza Castle and its museums. (To see the captions, click or tap on the first image, then scroll through the gallery.)

Lauren and Tom had to return to Wisconsin to go back to work, but Indi remained in Lecco with us for most of the summer, biding her time before she started school at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands in September.

A couple of weeks later, Meryl, one of our longtime friends from Plano, took a weekend off from a work assignment in London to visit us in Italy. We met her in Milan on Friday and took a guided tour of the city’s massive Duomo (cathedral), which included a walk around the perimeter of the building on the rooftop terraces (in near 100ºF heat–ugh!) and a visit to the Paleochristian and Medieval archeological area beneath the present-day Piazza del Duomo. Saturday, Meryl and Cheryl took the ferry to Bellagio for the day, and Sunday morning all three of us went to Bergamo for a quick visit to the walled upper city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, before Meryl’s flight back to London.

And as I mentioned above, Indi was a “long-term visitor” with us for much of the summer. Cheryl and I couldn’t easily be away from Lecco for more than a day until early August while all of our Italian residency paperwork was in process, but she, Indi and I found plenty to do in the Lake Como area meanwhile.

In early June, we explored the opulent home and gardens of Villa Monastero in Varenna, on the east side of the lake about 30 minutes north of us by train.

Later that month, we joined Slow Lake Como Tours for a two-part tour in Valtellina, the valley that runs along the south side of the Alps from Colico, at the top of Lake Como, eastward to Tirano. Our first stop was the Storico Ribelle caseificio (a traditional cheese production facility) in the hamlet of Gerola Alta, where we learned about their cheese-making process and then enjoyed a delicious lunch of cheese- and butter-loaded polenta taragna (a regional specialty made with a blend of corn and buckwheat) accompanied by samples of their cheeses and pizzocheri (another regional dish, containing buckwheat pasta with a rich butter-cheese sauce, cabbage and potato), Valtellinese salami and braesola (a thinly sliced dried beef salumi), and of course some Valtellinese wine. Then from Val Gerola, we traveled to Colico for a fascinating tour of Forte Montecchio Nord. Constructed between 1911 and 1914, it is the only World War I Italian fort still intact with its original weapons. It was part of a complex barrier system built to defend Valtellina and the route south to Milan along Lake Como if the Central Powers had invaded northern Italy through Switzerland (which never happened). The fort was also used during World War II, but never saw major action in either conflict.

In July, we attended a performance by the U.S. group Billy Cobham Experience at Lecco’s Teatro della Società as part of the annual Lecco Jazz Festival. The neoclassical theater building in the heart of Lecco, originally built in 1844, just reopened last year after an eight-year, multimillion-euro renovation. It was majestic.

Toward the end of July, the three of us sought refuge from the increasing summer heat for a day by driving a rented car up to Piani dei Resinelli, a plateau in the Lombard Prealps about 3,500 feet above Abbadia Lariana, just north of Lecco. A short hike through Valentino Park brought us to a belvedere (overlook) that juts out over the valley, offering spectacular views of Lake Garlate, Lake Como, and the surrounding area. From there, we walked to one of the many refugi (alpine facilities for hikers that can range from simple huts to guesthouses and hotels) for a delicious lunch.

We had no visitors in August, which was a good thing because the days were very hot–we have air conditioning in our apartment, but most stores and restaurants in Italy don’t–and many businesses closed for some or all of the month for the traditional ferragosto holiday. Once we had our residence permits and national ID cards in hand, we were able to get away for a week to the charming mountain town of Bormio in mid-August, but that trip warrants its own blog post.

On September 1, we traveled to the Netherlands to help Indi move into her apartment in Rotterdam. A few days after we returned to Lecco, we had a short visit with our Dallas friends Lisa and Lee and some of their friends, who were staying in Como for a few days. They were hiking the Como Greenway, an urban walking trail on the west side of the lake, between the villages of Colonno and Tremezzo. We took the train to Varenna and then the ferry from there to meet them in Lenno, at about the halfway point of the Greenway, where we enjoyed lunch together at a lovely lakeside restaurant, and then accompanied them on the remainder of the trail to Tremezzo.

The next day, Cheryl’s friend Socrates arrived in Italy on his way back to Florida after a trip to Greece. They have known each other since 1968, when they were neighbors in Little Neck, New York, and have remained close ever since. Cheryl met up with him in Milan where they toured the Duomo again, and then he stayed with us for two nights in Lecco.

October brought us still more visitors. Maggie, one of our fellow Road Scholars on our Florence tour last year, came up from Milan where she was beginning an opera tour to spend the afternoon and evening with us in Lecco. Longtime Dallas friends Rodney and Cristie spent a day in Lecco after we rode the Bernina Express scenic railway with them from Chur, Switzerland to Tirano, Italy–another trip that merits its own post. And moments after they departed for Milan, we were visited by Eddie, the son of friends who used to live in Plano (we watched him grow up from about age 10) and his lovely wife Pinal, who were touring around Lake Como for a few days.

Just in case it’s not already obvious, we love having visitors! Let us know if you plan to be in northern Italy…Lecco is an easy 40 minute direct train ride from Milan. Come see us!