Atlantica - 01.10.2006, Side 48

46 AT L A N T I CA
PARISa
villas around Como that shows their locations on
the lake and details their history.)
The Villa di Cipressi’s extensive gardens are
slightly fraying, but a worthwhile glimpse into
Italian lakeside landscape design. You spend the
morning looking at brass markers at the foot of
exotic trees that a previous owner had imported
from around the world.
After breakfast, Varenna picks up. An open-air
market is set up down by the harbor, where you
buy yourself a moth-eaten green Tyrolean hat
for five euros. You wander into the aptly named
27 Square Meters, a busy little restaurant across
from your hotel owned by Daniele Pecis, 31, and
his brother Marco, 25.
The Pecis brothers grew up here, and though
Daniele admits they are the youngest business
owners in town, he says Varenna is far from being
a dusty prop for tourists. People may work in the
bigger cities these days, but they still live here.
“With a car, you can move from villages to
towns where the work is,” Daniele explains,
sipping from a glass of prosecco. He says the
modernization of the lake’s east side has helped
preserve it as a living city. “On the other side of
the lake, there are no railways, and no highways
like we have here.” Villages on the west shore like
Menaggio and Tremezzo have had to open their
doors wider to tourists.
A morning thunderstorm hits the lake hard,
and you wait it out in a cafe, eating more gelato
with fellow patrons staring at the torrential down-
pour. The storm passes quickly, and by the time
you settle into a seat on a passenger ferry for a
short lake tour, sun has begun its dance over the
lake’s smooth blue surface.
“I’m glad we did this,” says a man behind you.
“Yeah,” agrees the woman sitting next to him.
The man adds, “It’s as beautiful as Hawaii.”
You spend the night at the same hotel in
Varenna, waking again to the church bells on your
last morning. But this time you do go back to bed.
When you finally go downstairs for the breakfast
An open-air market is set up down by the harbor, where
you buy yourself a moth-eaten green Tyrolean hat for five euros.
From left: The backstreets of Bellagio;
Early morning in Varenna.
042 Ítalía Atl506.indd 46 25.8.2006 10:04:49