A Dreary Day in Como

Our weeks are long. And mundane. And stressful. Fabio literally stays within 2 blocks (we live a 5 minute walk from his office), and never leaves for weeks at a time. At least not these days. Evenings and weekends are spent studying for the bar exam. He takes it this month, thank goodness. I'm also taking graduate classes through Seattle Pacific University, so in my spare time I find myself reading, taking notes, taking quizzes and writing drafts of a research proposal.

This is why last weekend, we said to ourselves, "We need to get out of Switzerland." It's great here. It's beautiful and serene. Two weekends ago was great when we cruised Zugersee. But that was just down the street. We wanted OUT. Lucky for us, Italy is only 2 1/2 hours away. Fabio was feeling homesick (he'll laugh when he reads that), so we decided to get on a train to Como. Como is literally 3 kilometers beyond the Swiss border-perfect! Fabio could still study on the train, and he could be OUT. :)

Como is a small Italian town located on Lake Como in Northern Italy. It's supposed to be one of the most picturesque places in all of Italy. There are small, quintessential villages up and down the lake, and it's a big tourist destination in the spring and summer. George Clooney has a house there. So do the Vanderbilts. Anyway, needless to say, it's not summer here. And you could tell in Como. It was downright dreary. We knew it would be though, so we were happy. We had our pizza and gelato, walked the old town, saw beautiful churches, strolled along the lake...we were happy. We'll definitely be going back in the spring though, because we just must cruise the lake, and stop off in those quaint little lakeside villages!

Here's some of what we saw:












This deserves a little commentary. Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the battery, is from Como. It was a proud moment for Fabio. (He knew about this before, of course!) This "temple" is actually a museum in showing Volta's batteries, but also a theater.


In case you care. One of the first batteries made by Volta. :)








On a different note, on the way home, Fabio and I were shocked at the difference between this:


and this:


One guess as to which one is a Swiss train!