Villa Balbionello

Tuesday
We enjoyed breakfast on a lovely vine covered terrace, with a view of the lake between the buildings. We were heading first to Villa Carlotta, across the lake in Tremezzo. Roger went ahead and bought the tickets, and we waited at what he believed to be the correct dock - there are four. Unfortunately, we realised just too late that we were waiting at the wrong one! There was about 30-40 minutes to wait until the next one, so we had a little walk round the town while we waited, including a look inside Saint Giacomo church, built between 1075 and 1125. Villa Carlotta was built at the end of XVII century by the Milanese marquis Giorgio Clerici in a natural basin between lake and mountains, facing the dolomite Grignas and the peninsula of Bellagio. The interior houses some beautiful works of art, while the wonderful gardens feature stairs and terraces, statues and fountains, azaleas and rhododendrons, a large bamboo collection as well as other rare plants and species. From there, we took the ferry to Lenno, and walked from there to Villa Balbionello, shown in my collage. We chose just to do the gardens here, and were frustrated to realize if we’d had our National Trust card with us we could have got a reduction, but we had cleared our wallets of cards we thought we wouldn’t need before leaving England! A Franciscan monastery had existed on the tip of the peninsula since the 13th century. The two towers which remain on the property are the campanili of the monastery's church. After failing in his attempts to buy the nearby Isola Comacina, Cardinal Angelo Maria Durini purchased the property in 1785. In 1787 he converted the monastery building into a villa for use during the summer and added a loggia, which allowed viewers to obtain two different panoramas of the lake. The villa has been used in the filming of several films, including the James Bond film Casino Royale and for the lake retreat scenes in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones. For an overall view of the villa and gardens, taken from the water, see the central scene in my extra collage yesterday. We knew there was the likelihood of thunderstorms today, and throughout the afternoon we had watched the end of the lake close in, and the waters of the lake become somewhat choppy as the storm gradually came closer. As we walked back to Lenno for our ferry back to Bellagio, we were afraid we weren’t going to make it before the storm hit. However, we had actually just made it to the ferry terminal and the boat was just coming in, when it arrived. The journey back took longer than usual, but the ferry made its way through the choppy waters very steadily. I have added a photo in extras that I took from the back of the boat as we were leaving Lenno, but after this the clouds closed in around us, and you couldn’t see any land either side.