Architecturally speaking we went from big, square houses with gardens around them, to big square houses with veggies around them in our trip from Bellagio to Padua. At times you could have convinced yourself you were in Werribee South. So many things about Melbourne make sense when you see Italians in their natural environment.
We spent a rest day exploring the lanes and gardens around Bellagio. Now it seems the Italians don’t go in for footpaths as you can see from this photo, should you be clipped by a Fiat coming round a blind corner, there is surely a little shrine built into a wall nearby to give you some succour in your final moments. 
We dropped by a house that looked like it could be George Clooney’s to view the gardens. I can see why George bought a place up here, you can pick up a nice little fixer upper for less than the deposit for place in Melbourne. The gardens were beautiful and full of little grotto’s and hidden paths to keep it interesting.
The house was originally owned by the Duke of Como and the had a little family chapel (I think that was the 15th century equivalent of a home theatre – a useless room only built to impress your neighbours). Check out the plasterwork.
So, with a bit of careful planning we worked out we could hop on the car ferry to Varenna, take a commuter train to Milan and then grab another train to Padua, getting into town for a late lunch. Easy.
So we grabbed the 8am ferry and waved goodbye to lovely Bellagio.
We hit Varenna station (nice station, even has a bar – could you imagine that working in Aust.?) only to find there were rolling train strikes across Italy (remember strikes?). We did manage to get tickets for the last train of the day, the 9:05 to Lecco which is 30km down the lake towards Milan. At Lecco we found a Ford Transit Van Taxi willing to drive us into Milan for about $250, so we split it with 3 Danes heading the same way and got dropped off at Milan Central Station just before noon. The only trains still running were the super fast ones and then only business class seats were available. So we ended up in Padua actually a little earlier than planned, having had a full travel experience.
Padua Station: note the camo Landrover in the corner with the security guys on guard. Always reassuring to see a little extra security…….
