We went down to hotel breakfast around 9 AM, and then hopped on the metro down to the Duomo stop again.
We were in the piazza just after 10 o'clock; it was much less crowded that it had been last night.
At the main ticket office, it was so busy that there was a line for the machine to get a number to wait in line for the ticket counter. Thankfully, we were able to get tickets at the Duomo Museum instead, with barely any wait.
Inside, the cathedral is similar to other European gothic churches, just a tad bigger. It's technically the largest church in Italy, if you agree that the Vatican isn't part of the country.
It was 10:30 on a Sunday morning, so mass was in session. The whole church smelled like incense.
After our walk through the interior, we queued up for the main event: a trip to the rooftop for a closeup look at the spires and such.
It was extremely unpleasant to wait in line for the elevator, in the hot sun, but it was worth it to see the flying buttresses.
They must employ a small army of maintenance workers to clean, repair, and/or replace pieces of marble. One imagines that they just start over again at ground level, after they've finished at the top.
We did a complete lap around the rooftop, getting a great view of the sparsely-populated piazza.
It was an interesting thought exercise to imagine how they are able to get so much scaffolding up to the roof, and maneuver it between the delicate marble spires.
It was around 11:45 when we go back to ground level, and we were supposed to check out of hotel at noon. Thankfully, nobody in this country seems intent on keeping to schedules. This would not have been tolerated back in Switzerland.
We returned to the hotel, showered, packed up, grabbed our leftover pizza, checked out, and dragged our suitcases over to Hertz to pick up our rental car.
For the rest of our time here, we'll be traveling in style in this dark blue, diesel Alfa Romeo Giulietta. It's a little bigger than what we had requested ("Fiat 500 or similar"), but it does add to the authenticity of our Italy trip.
Upon completing the usual rituals of car chargers, seat/mirror adjustments, bluetooth pairing, etc., we plotted a course towards Lake Como, about an hour north of Milan.
I felt extremely Italian, eating leftover pizza while driving an Alfa Romeo to Lake Como.
We tossed around the idea of stopping in Como for lunch, but it was crowded and chaotic, as one might expect on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of tourist season.
Being in no particular rush to get to our lodging for the night, we decided to take the long way up the west side and around the top of the lake.
Just outside Como, however, we encountered a literal roadblock. The main road alongside the lake was closed for the Cernobbio Triathlon Sprint, which detoured us up into the hills for a bit.
At the time, we had no idea why the road was closed (beyond "is that a bike race?"), nor how far the other side of the closure might be, so we studied the map briefly, and picked a reasonable-looking spot to come back to the main road.
Our wild guess turned out to be incorrect, but it was almost 2:30 PM anyway, so we found a parking deck and stopped for lunch.
We were quite confused about the presence of so many boat trailers in the parking area, but managed to carefully wedge the rental car between two of them.
As soon as we climbed down from the elevated parking and turned the corner, two things happened: 1) it became evident why most of the spots were occupied by trailers, and 2) we immediately found a pizzeria (Vecchia Tavernola).
Even though we just had pizza last night, we couldn't resist. The style of pizza was completely different from last night's, and was quite good.
After lunch, the main road was still closed, so we decided to take a walk along the lake. Immediately, we encountered a sign explaining the situation.
We walked south until we basically ran out of sidewalk, then turned around and headed back to the car.
This is a shot of the pizzeria; we were under the red awning, on the right.
Not even 10 minutes up the road, I pulled a "eh, let's go right at this fork and see where it takes us" move.
It took us down to the edge of the lake, through a series of small towns, on a two-lane road barely wide enough for one car.
At times, I almost believed we were through the tricky parts, and would return to the main road at any moment.
At other times, we sat, stopped, while cars ahead of us backed up, pulled over, or gave up and turned around. All while bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles were weaving in and around cars, filtering through the traffic jam.
Finally back on the main road, I vowed not to explore side routes again.
Several times, we suddenly came upon parking areas, and stopped to enjoy the view for a few minutes.
It was perfect road-trip weather, aside from the high temperatures, as we slowly made our way up the western shore of the lake.
There were signs everywhere that threatened (if my Italian is correct) electronic speed enforcement. Given that this may have included speed cameras, I tried to stick to the speed limits.
It seemed that everyone on a motorcycle was interested in doing about 20 kph faster than the speed limit, though, as they passed anyone in their way, often driving for awhile on the line between opposing lanes of traffic.
In some of the towns, the main road feels more like a cart path than a highway.
By 5:30, we had wrapped around the top of the lake, as the road wandered away from the water's edge, into the hills and through countless tunnels.
Just 20 minutes down the highway, we finally arrived in Bellano, our home base for the next few nights.
From lake level, it was only a few minutes drive up the hillside to the Airbnb. About 1.5 miles and 9 switchbacks later, we met our hosts and got the orientation tour.
This apartment comes with a welcome basket!
We unpacked, settled in, and enjoyed the "garden" for a few minutes before deciding what our next move would be.
Eventually, we decided on dinner plans. Sabrina wanted to take the walking path (stairs) down to town, but it's about 500 feet elevation difference; the idea of climbing the equivalent of approximately 40 or 50 flights of stairs in this heat is simply horrendous, so we drove back down to Bellano proper.
After finding some parking, we walked along the water's edge, in search of a restaurant that Sabrina had found online (I think).
We sat lakeside at the outdoor seating for Ristorante Pizzeria Cavallo Bianco.
It felt like we were eating dinner in a movie set. (Or at least how I imagine that would feel.)
The restaurant's outdoor seating being across the street from the building meant that all food, drinks, dishes, etc., had to transit a crosswalk through a fairly steady (but slow) stream of traffic.
We'd finally met our pizza limit earlier today, and opted for pasta instead. It was exquisite.
Coincidentally, this place also happened to have a selection of Italian craft beers available.
We watched the sun set as we finished our meals, culminating in an excellent tiramisù.
After dinner, we drove back up the hill to the apartment.
Tomorrow, we'll explore some other towns on the lake. Specific plans are still in limbo, though.
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