"Italian Beauty" Lago di Como by Sininen

End of last year I noticed that Ryanair begin to fly to Bergamo Airport and asked Ulla if she liked to spend a week in Italy in spring. It was not difficult to persuade her and we decided that a week's holiday in April would be great. We however didn't book the flights then but began to look for them in February and all cheap flights with Ryanair had gone by then. I then began to look for other alternatives and finally we booked with Blue1 (subsidiary of Scandinavian Airlines) which fly to Milan Malpensa Airport. After bad-slept night I sat on a taxi which fetched Ulla and then drove us to the bus station. We had made check in in the Internet so only had to leave our luggage at the drop in point and could go directly to security control. I forgot that I had my tread meter with me and caused an alarm and was searched. Next time I demand to be checked by a sexy young man! As this was non-frill flight no free meal was served, but we didn't want one anyway having had a full breakfast at home. Flight was smooth and time went by quickly.

Train at Saronno railway station

At the airport it took quite a lot of time to get our luggage, but finally we were walking to the trains. In spite of all the signs it took us some time to figure out where to go and we were not the only ones. We got our tickets and soon sat on the Milan Express. We changed trains in Saronno and this train was a local one which stopped at every station and the passengers were local people. It was interesting to look at them and imagine where they were going.

Lakeside boulevard

We decided to have lunch in Como before taking a bus which would take us to our final destination: small village of Griante. We found a small café which was also serving lunch and had lasagne. When I saw the portion I thought that it would leave me hungry. I was wrong, it was just enough to fill me and not made me too full. We decided to buy some bread before taking the bus. When we waited the saleslady to pack the bread we were talking about “levite” (spread in English) and the saleslady asked us if we wanted “lievito” and showed us small rectangular cubes. We thought that they were cheese and said yes. The bus station was across the square from the railway station and therefore easy to find. We got our tickets without any problems. As there was some time before the bus left we had a little walk and really liked Como. We couldn't understand why the guidebooks said that there's nothing to see there as we found it quite charming.

• Pros:Breathtaking scenery, friendly people, lots to do
• Cons:None - in summer probably full of tourists
• In a nutshell:Italy at its best