Lake Como: Being Nice Is Fun

When you consider Lake Como, what do you instantly think of? Water sports? Gelato? Campari aperitifs? High quality silk? If you said yes to any of these things, you’re a dirty, filthy liar. The only thing anyone thinks about when pondering Lago di Como is George Clooney. And then Daniel Craig. Although, I am now thinking about playing water sports with George Clooney, after which he peels me out of my high quality silk gown, so I can see how one could argue the point. And now I’m thinking about eating Gelato off Daniel Craig’s naked body.

Lake Como, the third largest lake in Italy, has towns peppered along its shores. We were staying in Menaggio, a small town on the western shore of the lake. To arrive in Menaggio from Florence appeared to be relatively straight-forward – catch a train to Milan, swap trains and catch another to Como, catch a bus from Como station to Menaggio which stops right outside the hostel. You probably gathered from my use of the word “appeared” that this journey turned out to be as straight-forward as Mulholland Drive. Using our Eurail passes in Italy required us to reserve a seat for a couple of Euro prior to boarding. The lady at the Florence train station (the one “just steps away” from our hostel), told us that we could only reserve seats on the train from Florence to Milan, and would have to then reserve seats to Como once we got to Milan. I didn’t think this was accurate, but we didn’t foresee it as being anything other than mildly irritating. We had one hour and seven minutes between the arrival and departure of our two trains. It took us 24 minutes to find the correct counter to reserve our seats, 19 minutes to be served, 11 minutes to explain what it was we required, and 12 minutes to robble all the way back to the same platform we had arrived at and jump on the train.

The good thing about having to reserve on a train is that you don’t have to go through the headache of finding seats together, or even finding a seat at all. You’d think. When we attempted to take our assigned seats, we encountered a problem. The seats were configured into groups of four facing each other, a table in between. Kaitlyn's and my seats were supposed to be opposite each other. However, there was a rather large lady sitting in Kaitlyn’s place. When I say “rather large”, what I mean is that I think she was one Big Mac away from upsetting the planet’s rotational axis. Kaitlyn pointed out the seat number on her ticket, a nice way of saying ‘Bitch, move.’ Mrs Brando didn’t really care, and rudely gestured that Kaitlyn take the seat next to her. Well, the half of it that was still free.

When we arrived at the Como train station, we discovered that “regular” buses have the regularity of a pregnant woman on a protein-only diet. According to the not-particularly-helpful staff at the station, we had just missed a bus and the next one wasn’t due for three hours. Como is not a modern train station - no Maccas or free-WiFi there. We were hungry, pack and shell-laden and Kaitlyn was still not feeling 100%, so the idea of sitting around for three hours on wooden benches wasn’t the most appealing thing in the world. Then we spotted a cafeteria and noticed they had ice-cream, and everything was okay again. Problem was, that was all the cafeteria had: ice-cream. They also had something which I think was supposed to be a sandwich, but the bread looked like dried-out green play-dough and, whatever the filling was, it was moving of its own accord. Something which wasn’t moving of its own accord was the creepy gentleman who emerged from the toilets and, despite us being the only people occupying the place, decided to come and sit down at our table right next to me; essentially on top of me. He smelt the way I imagine Karl Marx’s puss-leaking boils did. Although I doubt he was of the opinion that cleanliness is a bourgeoisie excess - I think he was just a homeless drunk with chronic halitosis. That was when we decided we would wait outside for our bus. (If you were wondering whether or not it is possible to eat an almond Magnum, and then eat a white Mangum half an hour later, it is.)

Eventually, our bus arrived and we had to squeeze on as it was quite full. Given that three of Kaitlyn’s top five tantrum-inducing entities are her backpack, Italians and public transport, I knew it wouldn’t be too long until I had to arrange my features into the well-practised “please-excuse-my-friend-she-forgot-to-take-her-meds” expression (or, as was becoming more and more commonplace, the “I-do-not-know-who-this-lunatic-is-and-I-have-no-idea-why-she-is-attempting-to-converse-with-me” look). It was thirty seconds. Tops. 'Well of course there’s no where to put my f@#%ing pack. THAT’S OKAY. I’ll just leave it on. I’m going end up in a wheelchair after this trip anyway, so what’s a bit more f@#%ing spine damage? Not that I would put it down anywhere anyway, because one of these Italian f@#%ers would just steal it.’ I was going to mention that, judging from their horrified expressions, some of these Italian f@#%ers obviously spoke English, but she cut me off. ‘For f@#%s sake. DON’T GET UP ANYONE. I’M JUST F@#%ING FINE STANDING.’ You would think that it would have been a relief every time someone made to vacate the bus. Nope. Because we were standing quite close to the doors in the centre of the vehicle, we would both have to manoeuvre whenever anybody wanted to exit. You know when you’re on public transport and people start moving about before it comes to a stop and they go flying? Well this is what Kaitlyn was attempting to avoid, and this is perfectly reasonable as it frustrates me on trams and trains when people try and push past me while it’s still moving and I end up careening across the carriage. When it happens to me, I tend to just stick my ground and completely ignore the person until movement ceases. What I do not do is snark at them, ‘Calm down, I’m f@#%ing moving’.

The bus route had two very noticeable components: lots of stops (with lots of people wanting to get off), and lots of twists and turns. It was only a 20-something kilometre trip, but it took over an hour. About half an hour in, it felt like we were on Space Mountain – and remember, Kaitlyn got sea sick on the Venetian canals. She was sporting a very Christmasy complexion – half green from the motion sickness, and half red from the exertion of verbally abusing everyone who tried to get off. ‘F@#%ING HELL! I’ll f@#%ing move for you when the bus stops. If I move now I’ll break my f@#%ing neck. But you’d probably enjoy that. At least if I was dead I wouldn’t be stuck in this f@#%ing country.’ She was in the middle of informing the bus that they weren’t ‘going to get off the bus any f@#%ing faster’ if she were to move right then, when I realised we were approaching our stop. ‘F@#%K! I’M GETTING OFF TOO. DON’T F@#%ING PUSH ME. F@#%.’

It was maybe a fifty metre walk from the bus stop to the hostel, admittedly up a very steep, very narrow hill, but the promise of comfort was so close, I just put my head down and barrelled up. Comfort wasn’t as close as we had thought, unless one finds sitting on pebbles with a cool lake breeze chilling your bones comfortable. When we reached the hostel door we were greeted with a ridiculously convoluted sign, the gist of which was that there wouldn't be any staff there until 5.00pm. This wasn’t a once-off, reading back through the essay, it became evident that the place closes between 12.00pm and 5.00pm for staff to take a “well-earned break”. Isn't this something you might want to mention when people make a booking? Also, advice from an objective foreigner: maybe the reason your country is in the midst of such a gargantuan economic crisis is because you all take FIVE HOUR lunch breaks. It’s commonly referred to as a “lunch hour” for a reason.

It wasn’t just the office which was closed during these hours, the entire hostel was. According to their “rules”, guests had to vacate their rooms and the hostel itself by 10.00am each morning for cleaning, and were not able to return until 5.00pm each evening. Also, there was a “strict” curfew of midnight seven days a week and, if you failed to return to the hostel by this time, you would be sleeping out on the pebbles. We hadn’t gone to Lake Como to have any raging nights out clubbing until the early hours, but the whole thing seemed incredibly totalitarian. At the end of the essay was a note to say that, if a person arrived before 5.00pm, they could come and “relax with our friendly staff down on the beach” with directions to the supposed “beach”. It was a long way around the lake and, assuming the “friendly staff” was responsible for the note, we questioned their supposed friendliness and we decided to remain sprawled out on the pebbles. After all, it was already after 4.00pm, and we figured it would be a bit of acclimatisation in case we missed our curfew either night.

About 4.55pm, one of the “friendly staff” arrived and unlocked the door. She half-heartedly acknowledged us as she walked past and then proceeded to lock us out until 5.00pm. She literally sat at the desk in plain view of the glass doors, turned on the computer, and then sat there and watched us, every minute or so looking down at her watch. At 5.00pm, she stood up, unlocked the door, and greeted us as if she was seeing us for the first time. I wanted to grab her by her luscious, dark Italian locks and slam her head into the ridiculous sign. Instead, I followed her and we checked in. After perusing the edible offerings and seeing nothing we fancied, we decided to instead walk into the town and find something there. As it was still a little early for dinner, we took the opportunity to meander around Menaggio and partake in some casual George-Watch.

After dinner we returned to the hostel, a rebellious three hours inside our curfew. Kaitlyn felt like ice-cream and I felt like wine, so we hit-up the bar/restaurant/communal area. This is when we discovered the first of many ridiculous and hilarious features of La Primula Menaggio: the “Social Table”. Right in the middle of the restaurant was a table just like every other table there, except for the addition of a folded, laminated sign reading “Social Table”. Firstly, it brought about an array of questions: what is the Social Table? Is the Social Table the only table at which one can be social? If there are no other free tables, can one sit at the Social Table and refrain from being social? If one is not social whilst seated at the Social Table, are there repercussions? Is the Social Table most effectively positioned in order to maximise socialness? Is the Social Table big enough to accommodate everyone who wants to be social? Secondly, how hilarious. I felt like we’d stumbled onto some hippy-feeling camp. We were both feeling quite social, so we decided to enjoy our ice-cream and wine at the Social Table. And boy were we glad we did! That evening we met and socialised with two South Australian girls who had been in Menaggio for a few days already and had some great lake tips; an American girl called Stephanie who is from Portland (which is where myfuturehusband, Isaac Brock, lives) and a Canadian guy called Sven. Make that the Social and Multicultural Table.

Despite being exhausted, I had a horrendously restless night and, when I woke up in the morning, my worst fears were confirmed: I was coming down with something. We only had the one day to sight-see and, after talking with the two South Australians, had decided to purchase an all-day ferry pass and visit various towns on the lake including Varenna and Bellagio. Breakfast unveiled the second La Primula farce. According to the website, breakfast was free and included tea, coffee, juice, bread, yoghurt, cereal and other things I don’t recall. The tea, coffee and bread were free, every thing else you had to pay for. This would have been fine as all I wanted from that selection was tea, coffee and bread. However, “tea, coffee and bread” suggests actual tea, coffee and bread, and this is not what was on offer. Sure, there was bread, but they were rationing it out like it was World War II. For the first forty minutes, there was no coffee at all, but it was the “tea” which was my absolute favourite part. As was the case with most hostels, the hot beverages were self-service from large urns. As there was no coffee, I poured myself a tea, only to find my cup filling up with boiling water. I asked the lady looking after breakfast and she opened up the urn to inspect. She looked inside, shrugged and said ‘There is tea’. Well, yes, there was tea in there – a single tea bag in a giant urn of water. I didn’t think it was unreasonable of me to ask ‘Could you maybe get some more tea, please?’ She bent over, grabbed another single tea bag, threw it in the giant urn of water and walked off. Apparently that conversation was over.

Lake Como is super beautiful. Our first stop was across the lake to Varenna. An ancient fishing village, Varenna is a small little town with less than 1000 residents and a steep hillside which offers the most magnificent views of the lake. We spent a few hours there, walking through the hills, first to Perledo to lookout over Lake Como, and then to visit the ruins of the Castello di Vezio, a castle dating back to the 11th Century. I thought it was a great walk, but Kaitlyn referred to it as “a f@#%ing hike – how do your tiny little legs move so f@#%ing quickly?”. After Varenna, we caught the ferry across to Bellagio. Known as “the pearl of Lake Como”, Bellagio is probably the most well-known of the lake’s numerous towns. As soon as we stepped off the ferry, you could smell money – it was a little bit like an Italian St Tropez. It boded well for George-Watch. Alas, despite an exhaustive search of everything from bars to playgrounds, Clooney remained MIA. We numbed the disappointment with an amazing lunch. Not surprisingly, all of the restaurants on the waterfront were ridiculously expensive, but we walked up a narrow, cobbled street and found a small restaurant which was incredibly cheap – not just Bellagio cheap, but cheap by any standard. For less than €6.00 I had bread, a glass of wine, and some incredible gnocchi. It was probably the best food I had eaten since the dumplings in Kraków.

After lunch we wandered around some more, eventually sitting down by the waterfront and people-watching with some ice-cream, a blessed relief for my increasingly-painful throat. There was still no Clooney, which was frightfully disappointing. It was getting quite late in the afternoon and, despite the fact I had rugged up in several layers in a pointless attempt to keep any illness at bay, the temperature was dropping with the sun, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the hostel. The ferry timetable was an oddity we never quite managed to figure out. There were two or three ferries which travelled between Cadenabbia, Varenna, Menaggio and Bellagio, but there didn’t seem to be any particular structure or pattern to how they travelled between each. When we left in the morning, Varrena became our first destination purely because that’s where the next ferry was heading; Bellagio became our second stop because that is where the next ferry was heading when it left Varrena. When we arrived at the dock in Bellagio, we asked the gentleman whether the ferry was heading to Menaggio, and he said it was. And it did, eventually – via way of Cadenabbia, Bellagio, Varenna, Bellagio and Cadenabbia. I was starting to worry that we wouldn’t make our midnight curfew, but we eventually arrived back in Menaggio and managed to make it to the supermarket before it closed. We had decided that, after such an enormous lunch, we’d just do something snacky for dinner, so we purchased bread, peanut butter and bananas with which to make sandwiches, and chocolate for dessert. Chocolate was 39 cents a block at this supermarket. I nearly passed out on the way back to the hostel but we made it and, as it was after 5.00pm, we were even allowed in our rooms!

Very little time was spent at the Social Table that night as I wasn’t feeling particularly social. Due to the hostel’s Internet being down since we arrived (I call lies), we had intentions of travelling across the border into Switzerland, but had no idea how or when this was going to happen. There was a café in the town offering 30 minutes free WiFi with every beverage purchased, so we planned to head there first thing the next morning. Kaitlyn had to almost hand-feed me I was feeling so miserable so, once our stomachs were lined, we went to bed. I wish I could say we went to sleep, but it’s impossible to sleep when you have the world’s most inconsiderate room-mates (outside of Kraków). We had gone to bed around 8.30pm (party animals, I know) and at 10.30pm, I was finally on the precipice of sleep when two girls barged into the room. They slammed the door open with such ferocity that it whacked into the wall behind it and turned on the lights, all the while talking to each other in their “outside voices”. One of them noticed us, pointing out to the other, ‘Oh! There are people sleeping.’ Correction: trying to sleep, so shut up. Yet, despite this observation, they went back to discussing “that guy’s eyes” in their outside voices. Off they went to the bathroom, leaving the light on and slamming the door shut. At this point I dragged my weak and weary carcass out of bed and limped over to turn the light back off. A few minutes later they came back into the room, still talking about this guy, slammed the door shut and turned the light back on. If it was 8.00pm or even a little later, I would still think them rude, but understand where they were coming from. But 10.30pm is not early. Still, two can play at that game. I was well and truly awake by that point and, once I was confident they were asleep, I moved my phone to the charger right near their two bunks, turning the volume up to maximum volume. Did I mention my alarm tone was The Killers and was set to go off at 6.30? Your move, hoes.

It was over breakfast the next morning we discovered my indisputable favourite La Primula absurdity: the Art Corner. My suspicions that we had accidently ended up in some kind of Kumbyah hell-hole were all but confirmed. The Art Corner informed us to “feel free to express ourselves”. There were some pretty hilarious “expressions” in the art corner, including a stunning grey-lead sketch of a motorbike and a lovely collage made from travel brochure cut-outs. However, hands-down, the best piece was the polychromatic declaration “BEING NICE IS FUN”. At least, that was the best piece until I decided to express my feelings. Specifically, my feelings about La Primula Menaggio. Being nice is overrated.

 

Next stop: Switzerland. Maybe George has travelled there for the weekend.