Friday, july 22

We had hoped to take a cooking class this morning in Bologna, but quickly discovered that such classes are booked up well in advance and the one remaining available class we found was several hundred euros per person.  So, nope.

Instead, we took an earlier train out of the city to get to our next destination of Varenna.  A small town on the coast of Lake Como, Varenna was a wonderful surprise.  We stayed in a spacious Airbnb apartment which was a quick five minute walk to town.

It was raining when we arrived, so we relaxed and read our books for awhile, then ventured down the hill to dinner.  Sarah was distracted by this lovely explosion of hydrangeas (favorite flower!) on the waterfront promenade.

Then we had a very relaxing dinner just steps from the water.  Check out the two resident swans!  They were a big hit with everyone who walked by and we're pretty sure the town of Varenna bought them and placed them here to enchant the tourists.  Brilliant!