Day 48 The challenge of independent travel

With the aid of the Lonely Planet and the Internet we booked most of our accommodation and did most of the planning for this trip ourselves. This suited us as we enjoy doing things our way. Mostly these plans have worked out well but some days have been a challenge.

This day was always going to be complicated for a number of reasons. Firstly we had about 850 kms to travel from Salzburg in Austria to Lake Como in Italy. The plan was to travel through 5 countries, by taxi, two trains and a ferry and arrive late afternoon in Como. Things started well as we left our hostel at 5.45am and caught the train at 6.22am. A comfortable train took us from Austria to Germany, back to Austria and on to Switzerland. By the time we reached Zurich the train was about 40 minutes late. That meant we missed our connecting train to Como. After a 45-minute wait in Zurich we caught a local slower train across Switzerland. We left that train at about 4pm only to discover the connecting train (that we were told about by the Zurich information office) only ran on Monday to Friday. After another hour delay we finally boarded a train for the Italian border. Surprisingly for the first time on our trip crossing a national border by train was eventful. At the border, police, customs and various other uniformed officials with sniffer dogs visited the train. Finally after another long delay and lots of shouting we crossed the border and minutes later arrived in Como, Italy.

Meanwhile another problem was brewing. Our accommodation at Como was in an apartment owned by an American, which we booked on the net. We were meant to be in contact with a greeter who would let us in but as we tried repeatedly to call her the number did not respond. Finally after a long walk from the station in Como we found the ferry wharf only to discover that we had missed the last ferry. It was now 7.25pm, which allowed us just enough time to buy some groceries from a shop across the road, which closed at 7.30pm. We then walked down the road to the bus station and found out we could catch a bus about 7.50pm to Curate Urio. We pleaded with the driver to tell us when to get off and he explained, with the help of a very nice Canadian girl on the bus who spoke Italian, that the bus was taking ‘the panoramic road’ (a problem…as the apartment was on the lake).
After a short trip we got off the bus on top of a very large hill and looked down to the lake. At this point it was now about 8.30pm and we still had a few problems

1. We did not have an address (Richard could not seem to find this in the correspondence)

2. We still had not contacted the greeter.

3. We were on top of a huge hill looking down to the lake (not even knowing if there was a road down there)

4. We knew the name of the place but that did not seem to help at all.

We found some stairs going down and choosing the ones to the right we began our descent. About a third of the way down we opened our laptop on a rock ledge (would have been a great photo but by now we were in no form to take pictures) and Richard realised that he had been dialling the wrong number for the greeter. We finally made contact with Silvana who told us the address and that the keys were under the mat. We climbed down the steps and found the road and number 31 of the street. Our villa was at number 129. After another 30 minutes or so we finally arrive at Vista Lago at 9.30pm.

As Wendy unpacked Richard went next door to see if the local ristorante did take away pizza. Without any common language Richard thought he ordered a take away pizza but after 45 minutes he began to worry.

Finally about 10.30pm Richard arrived back to Wendy who feared he had been kidnapped by the Italian mob.

What a day but in spite of a few very real mishaps we made it to a cosy studio apartment right beside the beautiful lake Como and enjoyed the best Pizza we have ever had.