This morning we got up at about 7:00 AM. The weather was still a little cloudy this morning after having some rain showers and lightning last night. We both slept pretty well, we were really tired when we finally went to sleep at around 11:00 PM last night. We always try to stay up as late as we can to adjust to the time change. We had no issues getting to sleep, but I woke up a couple of times during the night, mainly early in the morning, caused by our adjusting to the time difference.
Our impromptu plan for this morning was to go to the La Scala Opera House. It is quite famous, having been first constructed in 1778. It has been burned down a few time since it was originally built, and of course, was also damaged in WWII, and then rebuilt once more. Today, it opened at 9:00 AM, so we headed out from the room a little before 9:00 AM to walk to the nearby Metro Station. We needed to be back to the room at about 11:00 AM to finish packing and check-out before the 12:00 PM deadline
The Opera House was located near the Duomo, so we took the M1 Metro to the Duomo stop, and then used Google Maps for directions for the remaining walk to the Opera House. We were so intent in following the map that we did not really see the ticket entrance at the Opera House, we walked down the opposite side, and then all the way around the back before finding the ticket office in the front, but on the opposite side from where we had first gotten to the building. Just a few more extra steps to start the day!
We purchased our tickets and went inside. It was beautiful to see the inside of the opera house and we were able to go out onto one of the open private balconies in the rear of the theater that are specifically set aside for the tour. There were a lot of stage hands working on removing some sets from a ballet that had been performed here the night before.
There was also a museum that was included in the admission and there, we watched a few videos on the history of the construction, and several reconstructions, as well as visiting several rooms in the museum dedicated to the history of the Opera House. It was pretty amazing how the main stage is set up to operate with all of the moving platforms and areas for raising backdrops. It was all recently modified, and the mechanisms were updated to new technology.
We were glad we had come to see the Opera House, it was an interesting thing to do quickly in the morning before we had to leave.
We returned to the hotel and finished packing, and checked out at about 11:30 AM. We headed to the Milano Centrale Train Station to catch our 12:20 PM direct train to Varenna, Italy, located on Lake Como. The train ride was pleasant, and we arrived at the Varenna Station nearly on time.
We had about a 15 minute walk from the station in Varenna to our hotel. The walk was quite hilly, and seemed longer than the directions in Google Maps, but we finally made it to Hotel Varennahouse. We were met there by Vittario, who was there to check us in.
The accommodation was nice, it is a full apartment, complete with a full kitchen, but no oven. There was also a small clothes washer in the apartment, and Vittorio showed us how to use it. It is really small compared to our standards, and operated very differently from anything we were familiar with.
After we completed check in, we unpacked a little and put in a small load of laundry in the washer before heading out to see the city of Varenna. Varenna is quite hilly, and all of the steps are different sizes and mostly made of stones. We found a nice restaurant on the lake, and stopped in for a late lunch at about 2:45 PM. We split a pizza and a bottle of red wine. Our table was right near the lake, elevated on a stone balcony, and was really scenic.
After lunch, we just wandered around the town, and stopped in a few stores. We then started looking for a grocery store to purchase some supplies, and a couple of bottles of wine for the room. OK, this is a really small town, there were only two tiny grocery stores, more like small deli’s with a few other items. Since we had eaten such a late lunch, we opted to purchase some fresh cheese and meats, and some pasta to cook at our apartment. We went to the only two stores in town, and purchased a few items from each one.
Once we were back at the room, we had a small appetizer plate with the fresh cheeses and ham, along with some crackers and breadsticks.
We did not have much success with the load of wash, it was soaking wet when we went to take it out of the machine, maybe the spin cycle had not worked. We tried the entire wash cycle again, but with the same result, really wet clothes. Vittario had said we may need to run the “dryer” cycle a few times, but we were not sure what he had meant. Obviously, he had meant the spin cycle, which we tried to repeat. We even downloaded a set of instructions from the Internet. All of the instructions on the washer were pictorial, and we did not fully understand them. The machine seemed to be spinning, but it was not pumping out the water, or so it seemed. In the end, we gave up, and although the clothes appeared to be clean, it was going to take them a long time to air dry, so we did not wash any more items, worried they would not dry before we needed to leave here.
We cooked the pasta on the gas stove, and had it with some ham and olive oil. It was a good meal, and just enough for what we needed after the large late lunch.
We headed back out after dinner to see what the town and lake looked like at night. It was really quiet out, several restaurants were open, but all of the stores, and tourists were gone except for the people staying in Varenna.
We went to the same restaurant where we ate lunch, the Il Molo, to purchase some Gelato at their outside Gelato stand. There was a band set up there so we listened to them play some jazz music while we ate our Gelato, which was quite tasty.
It was getting late, not so much due to the time, but because we were tired from the six hour time difference, so we headed back to the room to work on the blog, and have a nightcap of red wine that we had left over from our dinner.
At about 10:45 PM we headed to sleep. Tomorrow is an early 5:30 AM wake up for our 7:06 AM train ride to the town of Como, and then a two hour ferry boat ride back up Lake Como to Bellagio, just across the lake from Varenna.