When deciding what we were going to do today, we had a choice. Either we could catch a No 10 bus to Como (1hr) in order to catch the funicular railway (7mins) up the mountain for views of Lake Como and then catch the two hour ferry back to Lenno. OR….we could walk a section of the Greenway path from Lenno to Tremezzo. I’d found this loop walk on a fabulous Website called MyLakeComo before I came away. They have all sorts of hikes to suggest along with loads of other ideas for activities to do around here. The information is very detailed and I really fancied doing this 5km ‘easy’ walk which I thought was well within our capability. I was very glad when Jane agreed that this was what we’d do and forget about the Como trip which exhausted me just thinking about it!
The weather today was supposed to start out with bright sunshine but a 7am look out through the curtains showed that this wasn’t entirely true. Cloudy and very chilly!
Anyway, by 10am we were on our way and walked along to the Gelataria, where the walks starts. Everywhere seemed to be closed today as it’s Wednesday so it was really peaceful. The Website has a link to directions using Google Maps but I couldn’t seem to get this to work. Instead, we relied on the description of the route which I’d taken photos of on my phone. The Greenway itself is well sign-posted and marked with steel symbols along the way.
The route runs right in front of our hotel ‘Albergo Lenno’ then along the shoreline before climbing up a steep cobbled path back to the main road. Here we left the Greenway and had to walk along the main road which has barely any pavement and is incredibly busy. Luckily we soon cut off back down to the Lake and into a little park. Here the guidance said ‘when you find an open gate, do not hesitate to go through’. We found ourselves in a lovely Italianate garden area right in front of the beautiful Villa Fontane. The views from here were fabulous as the sun had now come out and the sky was blue.
Next we walked along to the piazza in the hamlet of Azzano. Here there is an ancient magnolia tree 16m high and with a 1.3metres wide trunk. I sat under it which was lovely until one of the buds fell down from a great height and landed on my foot with a thud. Ouch!
Now we headed upwards along steep lanes with nice views but only to come back down again to the hamlet of Bolvedo. This is the start of Tremezzo and the lakeside here is particularly beautiful with the stunning Villa Quiete and a pretty orange church. Jane spotted the terrace of the Bar Roma, bathed in sunshine and right by the Lake. A great place for a sketch. And it turns out an Aperol Spritz for Jane, who was starting her birthday celebrations as day early. I blame this on the Italians, who seem to drink a Spritz no matter the time of day! I meanwhile, had a small beer and we both welcomed the freebies of crisps, and a plate of bread, cheese and Bresaola (another Valtelina delicacy of salted aged beef). Free! Who’d have thought it.
After this welcome break we walked along the promenade to another park at Teresio Olivelli, where steps down into the water provide a nice place for a dip. There were indeed two brave girls giving it a go.
Now we headed back towards Lenno by climbing up steep lanes and cobbled alleys and then walked through a series of hamlets of Valesio, Balogna, Viana and Intignano. None of these are shown on Google maps, so thank goodness for the Greenway signs to lead us! Up here there were lovely views all around and it was very quiet wandering past local homes and gardens, fabulous villas, olive groves and all the time with great views down to Lake Como. The sun by now had gone in again but it felt great to be this high up away from the madding crowd. We finally came back down to the lake via an incredibly steep cobbled path called Pola Vecchia and we were back in the hotel by 3pm. Haha 2 hrs walk indeed!
I have to say this has been one of my favourite days of the trip. For info, I just checked in with Jane and her favourite day so far was our Venice trip to Burano.
We ate in our hotel again tonight. This is not like us at all but it’s really easy and the food is great. There are several older couples who have been coming here for years. They get the same room allocated every time and the same table for dinner. They even seem to get their own special menu. Could this be us in a few years time?
Where shall we go to next? 