Day 13 – Tuesday
5:30AM, I am awake, I want to use the connection we found from the cafe downstairs. But I hear thunder like noises. I opened the shutters and there was rain and thunder. Quickly it turned into something resembling a hurricane. That cafe that we sat and ate in the day before had chairs all lined up in nice lines, well those chairs were all in the middle of the street.
The thunder & lightning were unbelievable, I’ve never seen it like this, lightning every 3-4 seconds. I couldn’t see the actual lightning because I was in the opposite side of the building, but I could see the sky lighting up and going dark over and over like the transformer is blown on a building or something. Water started to flow in the streets, like a pool. The manhole covers were overflowing with water, I figured that’s the end of Como.
We are in a beautiful hotel (Albergus) but it is an old mansion converted to a hotel, so I got out of the room and went around trying to find other windows to see where this lightning was striking. All around I couldn’t see it. Afterwards I went to the reception desk and the guy was there in a panic, I asked him if this was usual, he said, “The rain yes, but thunder like dis never happen, this crazy, something wrong!!” There was water coming into the lobby, I helped him put 15-20 towels to stop the water.
So I went back to the bedroom, I am filming and taking pictures of the busses trying to pass with all the chairs in the street. Anyway, Rosalin woke up around 6:00AM and said, “What are you doing? How long have you been up?”, I said, “30 minutes there is a hurricane going on…”, she said, “Ok, then we don’t need to go to breakfast at 8:00…” then she went back to sleep.
About 7:00 I called Garinn (She is in a separate room), I told her about the storm and asked if she is afraid I can come down, she said, “No, why did you wake me up dad? I’m OK” so I told her to go back to sleep and forget about being ready to come down for breakfast at 8:00. So around 8:00 AM dad calls, “Hey baron, abajooret patz nayir inch yegher-eh toorseh, antzrev potorig, inch bidi enenk?” Chem kider dad, Rozigeh bargadz eh, aysor take it easy genenk. So around 8:30 dad came, baron inch bidi enenk, chem kider bab Rozigeh bargadz eh, bidi tzekem vor hankisd meh artennah. He said, this will go away, I said I’m sure.
Sure enough, around 9:30 it was clear and sunny again, more beautiful than before. Crews were working into cleaning things up. They even had a sweeper for the lake, it comes and lowers a conveyor belt and collects all the junk that fell into the lake. The lake’s level had risen like 10-12 inches. Amazing. So we headed down for breakfast, it was so good. The ham and bread that they have is out of this world. Anyway, we had breakfast. Dad went to the harbor across the street to buy tickets for us to go on the boat, so we can see the real Belagio.
We went on the boat, the lake is gigantic, It is like a big inverted “Y”, so Belagio is right at the place where the Y-legs combine. It takes 2 hours with the boat (1 hour with the boat that goeas straight). So to see the entire lake in the fast boat you need 4 hours each way. Huge!! The houses with lakefront locations are amazingly beautiful (dad asked ($5Mill-???????) for single homes like that, and condos start at $1.5Mill. Paitz Gheir Shekel paner en. You need to be there.
So we got to Belagio, couldn’t believe our eyes, It is this tiny hotel, with a lot of other hotels next to it. It maybe has 30-40 rooms. Not even on the water, it has another hotel in front of it and then some restaurants. Then we found out that Belagion is the name of the village where all the hotels and shops are. Anyway, came back (6-hours total, 2:15 hours going, another 2:15 coming, and 1:30 there eating a delicious sandwich) I have to maintain this weight you know.
We came back relaxed a bit, then around 8:30 we went to the Funiculore, it is a train that goes sideways up the mountain. We were apparently making a Ricola commercial. We were going up the side of the mountain (2 Euros per person after 8:30). We got up to the top but didn’t really see much, so we rushed back into the funiculare, and walked back to a Pizzeria.
The waitress in the Pizzeria liked dad and came and shared her life stories (yes plural) She was born in Switzerland, her mother is German (That’s why she is big) from Hanover, her father is from Veneto (the L.A. County of Venice), She showed dad her ink (tattoos), even the one where she had to turn her back to us and well, this is a family blog. We ate our pizzas, and went to the hotel to sleep and get ready for Milan tomorrow morning.
Well, that’s it for today. Any questions? Didn’t think so. TTYL.
-D