Our last day in Italy.
Tuesday morning we headed over to Lake Como. Once we arrived, we were greeted by a
local tour guide, Roberta. As we
embarked on a boat cruise of Lake Como she told us a about the history and
pointed out a few interesting details about various villas. Below are a few pictures from the lake.
This lake is a playground for the rich and famous, and many
celebrities from around the world have vacation homes here, or stay at their
luxury resorts (according to Roberta the nicest hotel in the world is located
on Lake Como – Robert DeNiro was currently in residence there). Someone else in residence at their
vacation home – George Clooney – here are a few pictures of his place. This is George Clooney’s guest house,
his boat dock and park are directly to the right. See the people at the boat ramp…. George????

Here you can see Clooney’s guest house on the left, a park
on the right, and George’s house further to the right. He has a third house, behind his main
house, that is a studio, and additional guest space. I guess the nicest hotel in the world is still not
accommodating enough for everyone….

This villa we saw first from the lake is where we are headed
next, for a pasta making class, and lunch.
Here we are at “Our villa” learning to make pasta. Vivian rolled out some dough into a long thin strip and here
she is cutting it into pieces to make gnocchi, look at the concentration on her
face! People loved how committed
Vivian was to the excellence of her work.
Next Ella went up and had to separate eggs using the egg
shells – a task difficult for many adults, but she and Dani (a 12-year old
girl) rose to the challenge. They
were giggling in seconds, trying to figure out how they were supposed capture
just the yolk for the pasta while discarding the egg whites. After a while they just broke the eggs
and scooped the yolk out of the bowl with their hands. (No we did not actually eat this pasta
we mae– it was for “educational” purposes only). Anyway here she is with an egg yolk in her hand.
Matt and I were next and we both had a chance (separately)
to roll out the dough and then feed it through the pasta maker until it was
thin enough to thread it through a final attachment that would cut it into
fettucine.

We all had lunch at the villa which was fantastic (the same
recipes we had just learned although these were made by the professionals) then we went out the garden terrace for
a few photos, I love this one of the girls.
After lunch we went back into Como (the town) and had some
free time to look around. Here are
a few pictures taken in Como.
Our last stop in Como for the day… Gelato. We did manage to eat gelato once a day
while in Italy – YUM.We arrived back in Stresa around 6:30 and the girls took one
last dip in the indoor grotto pool.
The pool area has secret buttons that are hidden around the pool if you
push them it make jets in the pool turn on, or water spray from a hidden
fountain, one even make a rain cloud above your head rain. (In the first picture you can see the “cloud”
it’s the rock formation hanging from the ceiling on the right hand side of the
picture) The girls loved the pool.
The pictures from down there didn’t come out great because of the low
lighting, but here are a few.
After dinner we went into town for our final Italian meal of
Pizza at Mama Mia’s, and then packed up for Switzerland.