lake como!making the most of our babymoon fail

a few months ago, i got a wee bit obsessed with crafting an ideal finale trip for the boy and i to enjoy before our lives change forever in july. obviously we’ve had plenty of lovely and exciting opportunities to travel together pre-baby, but i was just a little over-excited about the whole “babymoon” concept and got my heart set on a super warm, relaxing, and bonding vacation over the holiday weekend at the end of may.

i spent way too many hours trying to decide where we should go, trying to weigh prices and weather and accommodation options and flight paths and preferences. i put off the decision, and flight rates went up. the boy and i discussed all kinds of different possibilities and finally i just had to choose – so i bought tickets to milan one morning and was determined that spending four days at lake como would be juuuuuust right.

i feel like we have really lucked out in so much of our traveling when it comes to logistics and weather and timing working out really well. but our determined-to-be-perfect babymoon has been, to be blunt, quite an epic fail. ha! so many things have seemed to go wrong that it’s become kind of hilarious – a total comedy of errors (which is just especially ironic because usually i am pretty laid-back about the logistics of traveling, but for some reason i got so stuck on this trip happening a certain way!).

we are currently sitting inside our hotel room. ian is studying for the cfa (which we didn’t factor enough into our plans…) and i am looking longingly at our perfectly lovely terrace perched over the gorgeous lake – it’s pouring rain outside. the forecast for the next thirty-six hours that we are here? 80-100% chance of rain and/or thunderstorms every single hour. i mean, you just have to laugh at that! and speaking of laughs, i might get a few when i go swim in the pool and lounge on the beautiful lawn chairs on the nice little beach at our hotel – in the cold rain. because we splurged to stay at this nice place, and nothing is stopping me from enjoying the amenities, gosh dang it! :)

rain or shine, and despite any missed boats/messed up best-laid plans/lost opportunities/pregnancy-hormone-induced weepiness/seeming wastes of money/logistical frustrations, we are so fortunate and happy to be in this magical place and to have some special time together before our family grows. and we’re giggling at the mishaps and appreciating the mystical beauty of the low-hanging clouds draping along the lakeside mountains, and so appreciating glimpses of colour and charm through the fog.

click through to see some pictures from our first couple of days on the lake! saturday was quite sunny and warm before the rainstorms rolled in, and amaaaazing gelato made up for a plethora of mishaps! and on sunday we really loved attending church in italian, eating pizza and spaghetti under a big awning in lecco town square, exploring the devastatingly charming narrow streets of verenna under our umbrellas, and driving along the entire far-east side of the lake en route to our hotel in gravedona. we even got ~an hour of no rain at dinnertime last night to stroll along the waterfront and admire the misty mountains as it got dark.

and now … i’m headed out to on the terrace with every intention of enjoying my rain soak :)
some photos from our speed boat ride from como to bellagio:
(so many darling and beautiful scenes were whipping past but the boat was extremely crowded and the windows were not very accessible! i managed to snag a few snapshots!)
 
i may forever have a soft spot in my heart for this gelateria that we found within ten minutes after our boat docked at bellagio. it was incredibly delicious, and we totally went back for more a few hours later (after we’d missed the last boat back, and bought our bus tickets!). we were both in heaven eating that stuff!

bellagio certainly charmed us, despite the low-hanging clouds that prevented us seeing the famous views to the snow-peaked alps. our bus ride back to como was long and crowded and sweaty, but afforded some fantastical views across the lake.
  

^^ see the road on the left curving along the mountain cliff?! ^^


some photos from our drive from lecco to verenna to gravedona:
  

and some photos from our hotel terrace and evening stroll in gravedona: