Leaving Italy: Lake Como & Tirano

We began our train adventure on a Sunday, leaving Milan on a mid-morning train north to Tirano, Italy, in the alps on the border of Italy and Switzerland.  I had researched the train options extensively as it can be confusing for an Americwn not accustomed to European train travel. In this case I had purchased our tickets online from home before starting the trip to minimize any possible confusion on the travel day.  This also allowed us to skip the ticket machines where gypsies and pick pockets can hang out looking for victims. We did not see any this day, but the plan was to avoid them.  We were very excited to start the train phase of our trip.

This was the first of many trains we would use in the coming days and it turned out to be one of the most scenic.  The route from Milan to Tirano runs along the eastern shore of Lake Como for miles and miles, providing unbelievable views along the way.  Lake Como is the third largest lake in Italy and is one of the deepest in Europe.  It runs north into the alps and the combination of a large lake and surrounding mountains is spectacular.  Below are some sample photos, but there are many more beautiful photos in the album for this post.

We were surprised to find a lot of people boarding the train in Milan that morning.  Most were not carrying or pulling suitcases, but seemed to have small day bags.  In multiple cases we noticed women who appeared to be wearing swimsuits with a cover up.  The train traveled for about 30 minutes before we started seeing the lake, and then as we made some stops at stations along the lake, the day travelers started exiting the train. It became clear that this was an easy weekend day trip for people in Milan to spend the day at the lake, probably on a beach, and enjoy a break from the city and the heat. What a fabulous getaway for a day!

Our other observation was that we saw very few boats running on the lake, and none pulling skiers or wake boarders.  Perhaps it was too early in the day, but it seemed odd.  We had noticed the same thing earlier at Lake Garda.  Whether water sports are less popular in Italy, or perhaps the water is really cold (it is a mountain lake fed by mountain streams and snow melt), we could not be sure.  Our one regret was that we had not planned time to put our feet in the water here.  

Finally arriving in Tirano, we had a couple of hours to kill so we found a cafe and had one last meal in Italy.  From here we boarded a Swiss train at a different train station (just across the town square) for our scenic trip over the alps.