Lecco

Today we are going to meet our friend who has been living in Milan for the past year, at Lago di Como. We hadn’t been able to reserve a spot at a campsite, so we had to leave early to be in time to look for an open spot. We left around 9 and headed to our first stop of the day, a McDonald’s in Colico to charge some of our devices and wait till a reasonable time to arrive at the campsite. I ordered an apricot croissant here for breakfast, which was the sweetest croissant I ever tasted (should not have surprised me considering Italian breakfast habits). After our coffee and breakfast we drove down to the lake, we were planning on staying near Lecco, so had to drive the entire length of the lake. My plan was to not bring my book to the front, since the views would be too nice anyways. Damn, was I wrong, turns out the entire length of the lake you drive trough tunnels, so we only saw very few glimpses of the lake. This did make it more of a surprise upon arrival I guess. Driving through Lecco was also an experience, the road planning here kind of sucks, but Julian did great and we arrived without any damage. We arrived at the planned campsite at the expected time of around 12 (the most common check-out time) so any open pitches wouldn’t have been taken yet. And we were right! At 12.30 we were fully settled and I could start baking eggs for lunch. Naomi, our friend, got our update and would take the next train out to Lecco, so she would be there around 3, which gave us plenty of time for a swim and a shower.

The benefit of an actual campsite became clear to us quite soon, our pitch was fully in the shades, there was drinking water available throughout the entire site, lake access and hot showers! We took full advantage of the benefits and I was able to use my earplugs for the first time so I could actually fully enjoy the lake. After settling in and relaxing, we took a hot shower and Noami would soon arrive at the station. Julian went to go pick her up and they did groceries so we wouldn’t have to leave the campsite again. We were very happy to finally see Naomi again, we hadn’t seen her since Christmas and we loved that we could finally show her Limão and tell her all about what we have done in the last few months.

When she arrived she pitched her tent, Julian helped a bit and I mostly watched, I wanted to see how long two engineers would take pitching this very simple tent and they did not disappoint. Noami had somehow forgotten the pegs to secure the tent, but we quickly threw in her air mattress and bag, so it couldn’t get blown away. This whole adventure had everyone overheated and we quickly pumped up the paddle board and headed to the lake. We had ambitious plans to paddle all the way to the other side of the lake, but quickly came to the realization that we would not make it the three of us on one board with one paddle so abandoned the plan and just chilled for a bit. While floating on the board we fell a few times, and discovered the paddle did in fact not float in the water, we retrieved it a few times just in time. We talked all about everything we had been through in the past months and Noami told us about what she has been up to in Milan. While floating around we noticed a forest fire on one of the mountains and hoped it would be extinguished soon. It got kind of late and we decided to leave the lake to make dinner, but not before diving from the dive board one last time! I dove in the water, wearing my earplugs and sadly left the water without… This meant, a wasted €8 and somehow still water in my ear… But okay, time for dinner.

We made vegetarian wraps and had a bottle of very cheap red wine with dinner. After dinner, Julian and Naomi went to swim again during sunset. They brought the paddle board and paddled away into the sunset. Somehow they fell, and the paddle ended up in the water, in the afternoon we had already discovered it didn’t float and in the dark they weren’t quick enough to retrieve it (RIP to the paddle, now tangled in the plants at the bottom of lake Como). They floated around for a few hours in the dark while I did some reading. Sadly, the battery of my E-reader died and I got bored so I called them back. We finished the bottle of wine and headed to bed around midnight.

This morning we would leave the campsite and head to Milan. Check-out was at noon, so we decided to have breakfast and go for a quick swim before breaking down. Breaking down the tent was an experience but in the end everything ended up in the back of Limão and we checked out 10 minutes before noon. Noami would wait at the cafe while Julian would take me to a beach at the lake a little further. I took the paddle board and some water with me to spend my time while Julian would pick up Noami at the campsite and they would look to buy a paddle at Decathlon. Since my E-reader was still dead and I can’t carry the paddle board, because I am simply to short, I was stuck at a bench under a big tree. After two hours Julian and Naomi finally came back, still without a paddle, because they were too expensive. But we could finally head to the beach. At the beach we had a very chaotic lunch consisting of bread, with mozzarella and pesto. There was supposed to be tomato, but the battery in the van had been acting up again and the fridge had been turned off for about a day, which meant the tomatoes had gone bad and our lunch would be a little sad.

After lunch we went for a bit of a swim and Naomi somehow lost her cigarettes after our camping trip, so we had some discussion on where it would be and the conclusion was that it had somehow been folded in her tent. I headed back to the van to get some more water and some games to play on the beach. I also tried to look for the lost cigarettes but it looked more and more like they were in the tent. I headed back to the beach and we played some of the games I brought, during this a very cute dog (with a very handsome owner) came up to us looking for pets, which he generously received. Finally, we swam some more and headed back to the van so we could park in Milan before dark. Naomi left towards the station while we headed to the van. We folded the paddle board and slowly left towards Milan.

On the way we stopped at Burger King because otherwise we would arrive before Naomi and we wouldn’t be able to access her parking lot. We had a coffee and ice-cream and entered the city. We were still a bit too early but could wait just before the gate of Naomi’s house. She had warned us the turn into the parking lot was going to be difficult, but she had underestimated the size of Limão and Julian had to try every possible angle to reach the gate in the right position. He had turn the car so many times we lost count, but eventually he did it, and I was very proud of him, because this was definitely not easy. After passing the gate, there was somehow an even more difficult turn, so some more maneuvering had to be done, but he eventually managed to get into a spot.

We arrived in the nicely air-conditioned apartment of Naomi and could start making dinner, fries with grilled vegetables. We also finally met her cats! Milo, the bigger, white cats with the dots, and Coba, the smaller brown cat. They are very sweet cats, except for the one moment Milo bit and scratched me, but he has been forgiven. Noami apparently hadn’t watched B&B vol liefde yet this season, so we watched the first few episodes during dinner. Eventually Julian and I made our way down towards Limão to spend the night. Sadly, at this point, the battery has completely failed to charge and the Maxxfan couldn’t be turned on for the night, which meant we had to sit in the front of the van for a bit while we opened all of the windows in an attempt to cool it down inside. While we were waiting for the temperature to drop, I saw what looked like a cat at first sight, because of his size. But then walked super strange and had a tail that was too big for it to be a cat. After some investigation it turned out to be a nutria (yuck!).

During the night we woke up a few times because of the heat and in the next few days it was going to be absolutely essential to fix the home battery.