Lago di Como Day Trip Journal

After spending a full day in Milano and realizing how close Lago di Como and Bellagio were, we decided to spontaneously do a day trip the following day and it was such an experience and adventure in so many ways. It only took a half hour train from Milano Centrale to Varenna and then a 15 ferry to Bellagio. It seemed so easy and we were so excited.

1. Train to Varenna

Not only is the train only half and hour, but a round trip tickets costs only 13 euros! In typical “us” fashion, we made it to the train with 2 minutes to spare, which we should’ve taken as a hint of how the rest of the day would go…

2. Ferry to Bellagio

Once we made it to Varenna, we walked around a little bit and checked out the beautiful views from Bar Il Molo. We went back to the ferry stop and bought a one way ticket to Bellagio (3 euros) because we wanted to explore the different spots in the lake, little did we know…

3. Bellagio and Pasticceria Rossi

Our first stop was get some coffee and breakfast at this cute, old pasticceria near the ferry stop. It seems to be a Bellagio staple and has great atmosphere and a cool, local crowd.

4. Exploring Bellagio

Even though it wasn’t high season at all and it was kind of cold, the quiet walk around town was still so nice and special. We walked all the way to Via Pescallo and be sure to walk through Salita Antonio Mella (cutest cobblestone street) and don’t be afraid to explore through little corners and allies along the way, I promise you’ll see the best stuff!

5. Lunch

For lunch we went to a simple, local restaurant that seemed to be family owned and had really good pizza. Right next to it though is the place we originally wanted to go, Terrazza Barchetta which also seemed really good and pretty but it was closed when we were there.

6. Ferry to Tremezzo (not)

So after lunch, we were having such a good time, we were super relax and everything was going great. It was around 1:00pm, our train was at 2:40 and we wanted to take the short ferry to Tremezzo to visit the luxury hotel, Grand Hotel Tremezzo but there were no ferries left. That was fine, we just figured we would grab the ferry to Varenna and hang around until our train. Turns out, the next ferry was at 3:40pm, an hour after our train back to Milano left and there was nothing we could do…

7. The Struggle

We freaked out but immediately sprang to action trying to figure out what are options were, which were barely any. We talked to some guys about a private ferry but that wasn’t an option (we even asked if we could hop on with the group who already had it booked). We ran around everywhere, asked the mad ferry guy a thousand times what we could do, considered hopping on a random bus to Como and then getting a train from Como to Milano, almost took a 100 euro taxi to Como… In the end the only thing left for us to do was buy another train ticket for later in the afternoon (which was over an hour after we would get to Varenna) and can’t forget having to call the hotel to let them know we would be two hours late to our 4pm check out.

By the time we got back to our hotel, we were exhausted but the rush wasn’t over. We were planning to take the bus from the train station to the airport and turns out the only one that worked out for us was about 5 minutes from leaving after we got there. Somehow we finally made it, got to the airport, had some pizza and gelato and it was finally time to go back home to Paris.

Here's a little video I made of our day and the amazing views of Lago di Como!

Even though it was cold and off-season and of course there was The Struggle, Lago di Como was so worth it and it made me so happy to go. I did a bit of research prior to going so I’ll write down below all the things that I missed but were highly recommended.