A re-post from June, 2008. Was it that long ago? Seems like yesterday...It was a fine trip.
We took a day, last week, to hop the train over to Lake Como (and to stop by the Como Duomo), and took the fast ferry up to Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo - and then across the lake to Bellagio to see the equally renowned gardens of Villa Melzi.
The 17th-18th century Villa Carlotta and its gardens were a traditional and necessary stop on the "Grand Tour" of "the Continent." We anglophiles like to follow in those old paths.
It is impossible to capture on camera the feel of such vast and varied gardens, which are, in effect, both botanical gardens with worldwide collections of plants, and ornamental gardens designed to impress as much as to delight - some formal Italian and some English-style.
For example, these gardens have bamboo groves, Sequoia groves, acre-sized plantings of azalea, palm collections, collections of cacti, citrus arbors, etc. Even a turtle pool with happy and smiling American southern Red-eared Sliders and Cooters.
This photo is the entrance:
More of my mediocre photos on continuation page below -
Train from Stresa down to Milan, then eastward into Lombardy to Como. Mussolini's truly fascist-style Milan train station (there are even carved - or cement - fasces decorating the exterior). An adventure, especially with the Somali thieves in the train stations, but we should have just called for a car for the trip:
The ferry approach to Tremezzo, on a foggy and drizzly day:
A church on the main drag in Tremezzo:
A view of the plantings adjacent to the Villa, with a Wisteria and Jasmine arbor, in progress.
The view from the porch. That's the Bellagio peninsula across the lake.
Another view from the gardens:
and another:
