Italy Day 4 - Thursday on Lake Come, Italy

Before telling you about Lake Como, let me share with you an interesting fact about one of the Piedmont communities that we did not visit, Turin, or Torino, the capital and principal city of Piedmont.

As was told to us by our guide Baruch Lampronti, the Jewish Community of Turin today, in recognizing that the dwindling numbers have made it difficult to maintain a daily minyan, has adopted the practice of trying to have a minyan in shul every day of the week and they have come up with the novel solution of having a minyan for Monday morning, Tuesday mincha and Maariv, Thursday morning, Friday Kabbalat Shabbat and of course Shabbat morning and mincha/maariv. In this way, there is a tefillah service there at least once each day. How, you ask? Well the Maariv on Shabbat covers Sunday, the Maariv on Tuesday covers Wednesday and therefore on every day, there is at least one minyan in Turin. 

He also shared with us the fascinating story of the Mole Antonelliana, which totally dominates the skyline of Turin (see pic below).

It was originally designed in the 1860s to be the Great Synagogue of Turin and its name comes from its designer Antonio Antonelli (his parents must have had a great sense of humour)! It is the tallest unreinforced brick building in the world (ie; built without a steel girder skeleton underneath). But cost overruns, delays (begun in 1863 and completed in 1889!), a decline in the Turin's Jewish population and other factors caused the Jewish community to pull out of the project. They traded the project at a loss to the city of Turin for a piece of land upon which they built the present (not too shabby) Grand Temple of Turin, where services are still held "every day of the week"!

 

But I guess a full report on Turin will happen iy"h when we finally get to visit that city in the not too distant future (we hope). 

Now on to Lake Como.

We arrived in Lake Como on Wednesday night and we were staying in a small boutique hotel in the town of Lenno, strategically located on the western side of the lake about midway between Como at the southern end and Domaso at the northern end. We chose Lenno as it has boat service to Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio, three little villages that we wished to visit. 

The magic of Lake Como is the synthesis of crystal clear lakes surrounded by mountains that are filled with lush greenery and dotted with charming little villages. 

 

These villages began as fishing villages but now owe their existence to cafes, restaurants, shops featuring designer clothing and jewellery and many, many tourists. We were hoping that by coming here in late May/early June, that we would beat the tourist busy season and not be stuck in traffic jams and overloaded boats. 

The way to visit the villages is by boat and the excellent ferry service that shuttles tourists around runs on time and has a frequent schedule. There is some hiking to do as well as some gardens and old villas to visit, but we really just wanted to come and spend a relaxing day, enjoying a walk through the beautiful and well maintained villages of Lake Como. 

And if it is sunny, it can be a photographer's dream. The forecast was calling for sunny with cloudy periods and we were hoping that the cloudy periods would come between the wonderful "Kodak moments"!

 We mapped out a route of Lenno to Bellagio to Ravenna to Mennagio and back to Lenno, leaving by 10 AM and back by 5 PM. 

Of the three that we visited, we enjoyed Bellagio the most and while it clearly is the most visited, the crowds were light while we were there and we had the time and space to enjoy a leisurely walk through the town and the hills upon which it is built.

 
 

On Friday morning, we got the break we were looking for; a couple of hours of totally clear, sunny weather. We wanted to visit the Balcone d'Italia, the Balcony of Italy. We had read about this panoramic spot high atop Mount Sighignola, overlooking Lake Lugano and the city of Lugano in Switzerland, providing a breathtaking view of the entire region. And our good friends Josh and Liz Gordon had gone there and had confirmed that it was well worth seeing. But it had to be a clear day as any cloud cover could mean a long drive for nothing. 

For those who might do this drive, be aware that the phrase Balcone D'Italia does not appear on any signs on the roads to the site. The name of the mountain does appear and occasionally you see a sign telling you in Italian that you are on the road to a panoramic viewpoint, but unless you have a great map or Waze, you will never find this place. It is amazing to me that the local tourist board is not promoting this place and when you finally get there, there is no tourism infrastructure at all (which in many ways is great) and it is quiet, peaceful and no crowds (which makes this place heaven)! 

To get there you have to watch for the turnoff on the Como road to Argegno and then you begin climbing the mountain on narrow switchback roads for 21 Kms. That is a lot of driving and it will take you half an hour to reach the summit. Again, there are no signs telling you to turn right or left, so Waze it is! The ride is not difficult but it is mountain driving so you have to be careful. 

When you reach to top, you are at an altitude of about 4000 feet, which is high enough so that the view below is easily seen and it is not that high where everything inevitably becomes hazy. Our day was clear as can be and even so at this altitude, it was slightly hazy. 

But the view is beautiful. And as they say...it was well worth the drive to Balcone D'Italia. 

 

 

 We continued on our route to Sirmione which is at the southern end of another of Italy's Lake District, Lake Garda. Sirmione is a small town built on an isthmus into the lake. Just outside of town, right on the shore is a mehadrin kosher hotel, Hotel Olympic, which would be our base for our two shabbatot in the area. We are staying right next door to the hotel at Villa Onofria, a small condo apartment complex, which was recommended to us by our friends in Hashmonaim, Avi and Robin Schreiber. 

The hotel next door has a restaurant where you can get delicious pizza as well as other dairy and meat options during the week and for Shabbat you can have meals there, even if you are staying elsewhere in the area, and if desired, they provide prepared take out meals. They also have a small grocery carrying kosher basics. And when there are at least ten men staying there or in the area, there is a minyan. 

 Our Shabbat in the area was relaxing and enjoyable. We ate at the hotel on Friday night and at the apartment on Shabbat morning. We also enjoyed meeting a number of the other guests staying at the hotel. There were minyanim for Shabbat and Sunday morning and I davened and lained for the shul. At mincha on Shabbat, there were a number of Israelis at the minyan and because the Israel and diaspora laining is out of sync (due to the fact that the last day of Pesach in chutz la'aretz was a regular Shabbat in Israel), I was asked to lain the entire Parsha of B'chukotai as the mincha Torah reading, so that they would not miss a week of Torah reading when they returned to Israel during the week. There is a first time for everything. 

Sunday we are off to continue exploration of Italy's shuls in Verona and Padua and then it is on to Venice for a couple of days.

All the best and Shabbat Shalom to all

Fran and David