Good morning, good afternoon, or good night friends! How are you? I hope you all had a lovely week. I am thrilled today to be finally back with travelling posts! It took me quite a long , long time to decide what I wanted to do, and I finally ended up with this. Without further ado, let’s dive into another lovely exploration of what I found to be a little corner of paradise….
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If you were already there back in March, I wrote a blog post about the lovely treasures of the city of Como, Italy. This summer, I went back in the same area with my family, but we discovered different cities, dream landscapes, and, erm, yes, ITALIAN FOOD. Again, you ask? Well, wait until you see the pictures. Before I take you on a tour of the Italian lakes, let’s actually SEE where we are headed here…
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I swear it was love at first sight. Welcome to a little glimpse of the huge lake that is lake Lugano, one of the three major lakes of this area. Let this be a warning: everything in this post will make you want to swim, or go on holidays (or I hope so. It certainly makes me want to go back!).
Lake Lugano, viewed from where we stayed. A little corner of paradise with an italian mamma giving us pasta. Alright, enough with what kind of pictures awaits you…let’s get on the road!
FIRST STOP: MENAGGIO ?
If you’ve seen a map, or are a bit aware of how this region looks like, it’s just this : HUGE LAKES everywhere, surrounded by mountains, and little cities with their feet in the water. After a short drive, we arrived to the first stop of this day tour, the little city of Menaggio!
A lovely promenade along the lake reminded me of the South of France, and pretty much has a Mediterranean vibe to it, though the mountains surrounding us made this whole walk completely different.
If the highlight of this place really is, the lake, the small town is worth a visit if you fancy watching everyone eating ice cream, all the time. And you will probably end up getting one as well. Or maybe three, because why the hell not?
SECOND STOP: VARENNA ?
If there was one place I could pick, out of the little towns we did on this tour, it would be this one. Varenna. It’s one of the cutest cities EVER. If you remember your geography from before, Varenna is a short…swim away from Menaggio. Okay, maybe not that short, and since I didn’t bring my swimsuit along, we decided on the boat for this. After 15 minutes, here’s what we arrived to…
So, so CUTE, I couldn’t find another word even if I wanted to. Little did we know about what awaited us in this place…
Little streets like these, where you can barely fit two people next to each other. Colorful houses, italian people and lots, LOTS OF tourists, which it perfectly understandable given the beauty of this place. And, erm………. STAIRS. This is the city of stairs, people.
But my sore feet forgive you, Varenna. You are too pretty.
GETTING AROUND THE LAKE:
If you’re a bit like me, and/or don’t want to drown in here -it’s DEEP. Really, and/or don’t fancy renting a canoe or anything because you’re not sporty at all, well… the best way to get around these places is, by boat. Lovely, rocking on the lake, kind of crowded and expensive boat.
? It’s a 15-minutes boat ride between each of the cities in that blog post (Menaggio – Varenna – Bellagio). You can buy an all-day pass, and get around as much as you want.
? If you want to see Lake Lugano as well (featured in the first pictures of this post), it’s a 15-20 minutes drive from Menaggio to Porlezza, and the lake.
? Once you’re there you can easily walk everywhere, and this is what I love the most about these places. Walking to discover a city, nothing’s better.
THIRD STOP: BELLAGIO ?
Our third stop around the lake was the little, yet very, very touristic city of Bellagio, where we stopped for ciabatta, to walk up and down more stairs, narrow streets, with great views of the Lake.
? Italy: let’s talk FOOD
Could I really take you to Italy without talking about FOOD? No, you’re right, I couldn’t resist. We all know the traditional pizza and pasta, and we couldn’t pass this up. Moreover, eating out isn’t that expensive, and you can get great pizza and a full stomach with less than 10€ in your wallet. So… GO FOR IT.
You definitely succeeded in making me want to travel and swimming haha. IT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL. My travel bucket list is always expanding thanks to you ??
YES, goal accomplished! 😀 It is such a beautiful place, I hope you’ll go someday! and thank you so, so much <3
Oh wow! This just feels like paradise to me! Love this post – thank you for sharing. I’ve always wanted to travel to this area of Italy.
Ohh thank you so, so much, I am so happy you enjoyed this post. I hope you’ll get to go there someday! <3 <3
God these are amazing pictures Marie! You’re definitely making me want to hop on a plane and travel to Italy right now so I can see these sights with my own eyes. The only Italian lake I’ve been to is Lake Como on a day trip, but I remember it being beyond beautiful there, and there was so much left undiscovered. You’ve definitely made me add these places to my must-travel-to list! 😀
Great post as well, I can’t wait to see more of your travel adventures! 🙂
Thank you so, so much Beth, I’m so happy you liked these <3 It's such a beautiful place, and there is so much to see, these lakes are HUGE. Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying these travelling posts 🙂
That’s all right! <3
Oh I can imagine, it was breathtaking when I went and I know I only saw a small part of Italy so there's obviously still so much left to discover out there!
Definitely, I can't wait for your next one! 😀
There’s so much to discover EVERWHERE, it’s crazy, I need unlimited travelling-time 😛
Oh god that would be a dream come true! The ability to travel anywhere in an instant! 😀
That would be THE dream, really <3
Yaaas, great post, Marie! Thanks for sharing your travels with us because I am so living vicariously through you. <3
Italy is very, very high on my to-travel list because it's so beautiful from pics and I really love Italian food. And that lake! Everything looks so beautiful and summery. 🙂
Thank you so, so much, so happy you enjoyed it <3 Italy is such a beautiful place, even if I only have explored a couple of cities so far, it's gorgeous. And Italian food is so great! We were quite unlucky with our waiters and restaurants though, but the food was always very good 😀
I wish I could do that easily! Europe is literally at the other end of the world from me, haha.
Oh nooo, what happened with your waiters and restaurants? 🙁
And so is Australia for me. It makes me SO sad, I wish I could just fly instantly there, and you could, as well. Why didn’t we invent that already?!
We just had trouble with rude waiters and mixed up orders, ALL the time ahah, I guess Italian restaurants weren’t for us haha.
I knooow. Teleportation would legit solve literally 99% of my life problems, haha.
Aww, sorry to hear that! Was it ALL the restaurants you’ve visited while you were there? D:
Yes, sadly it was every place… I guess we were out of luck!
Aww, that’s too bad! Hope your next visit there is better. <3
Well other than that, the rest of the trip was perfect 🙂 <3
Beautiful pictures, Marie! Italy has always been on my list for travel destinations. This makes me want to go even more. 🙂
Thank you so, so much Jillian, I’m really happy you enjoy it <3 I hope you'll come soon, the day you're coming to France and England, and make this a full-Europe trip? 😛
Beautiful pictures.
Thank you so, so much 🙂
Oh my these pictures are super beautiful and now I really want to travel and go there right now. And I also want to eat Italian food. But honestly, I always want to eat Italian food 😉
Seriously, this is definitely being added to my travel bucket list. I love Italy and already went a few times – I saw Rome, Milan, Pisa, Firenze and this year I went to Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast (which was also gorgeous btw) – but I never went to this area before and it seems like I’m missing out!
Oh thank you so much, so happy you enjoyed it! <3 And Italian food is just SO good, I agree 😛
Oh wow, all these places sound wonderful, which one was your favorite? 😀
I would really recommend pretty much the entire Amalfi Coast, but I especially loved Positano and Ravello. Positano is kind of the most popular town at this coast, with the typical image of the little coloured houses on the hills, but it really is so breathtaking and beautiful. Ravello is more up in the hills and it’s smaller and less tourist-y, but the views are amazing and I just thought it was such a charming little town. I would definitely love to go back one day 🙂
Ohh those places look FANTASTIC, I just looked them up and WOW, I need to go there. Thank you for all of these lovely recommendations, they make me want to travel again soon, so badly <3
Omg this place is TOO BEAUTIFUL! I really want to go there now. I love to be by the water. Something about it relaxes me.
RIGHT? I just fell in love with it. All this water is so relaxing, and everthing just looks absolutely gorgeous. Thank you <3