| Road Trip to Lake Como

20 March

Road Trip to Lake Como

Lo | CSP Experiences, Europe | No comment

I experienced a first! I’ve never rented a car out of the country. I did rent a motor bike in Phuket, but renting a motor bike to explore an island is very different than renting a real car to road trip. I can’t take all the credit though. My friend Zim, founder of Travel Noire, came up with the idea to road trip to Lake Como. She flew in the day after me and pulled up with ceiling missing. We didn’t just get a regular car. We got hooked up with a drop top–free upgrade. A 2014 VW Eos. Yeah, I didn’t know what type of car that was either. Don’t you love when you rent a car you never noticed on the road and realize it’s actually a nice car. The Eos is one of them. We had the rental from Friday-Tuesday. It costed us $150 each, which included insurance. Not bad considering we ended up roadtripping to 3 additional countries. (I’ll explain later) The only catch— a big catch too— The rental car put a 900 Euro hold on Zim’s card. Major side-eye. That’s $1251 USD. Now, I’m sure this is NOT the case for all rental companies, but make sure you do your research because that could put a MAJOR damper on your trip.

I drove the first leg. I can’t front, when I first got behind the wheel I was geeked! I was driving a foreign whip in a foreign country. C’monnn! You would have been hype too if it was your first time. Thankfully Zim got a sim card for her Iphone so we had GPS navigation. (Sidenote: Did y’all know that some rental cars come with wifi? of course if you pay for it– we didn’t lol) Even with GPS, driving in the city was a bit crazy. The street signs are located on the buildings instead of actual stand alone signs like in the states. As you can imagine this created a little bit of difficulty–hearing foreign street names and then scrambling to find the signs while trying not to drive like a grandma. Once we made it out the city, it was smooth sailing. An easy 45 minute drive.

Lake Como is located in the Como province in Lombardy, Northern Italy. A major vacation destination for Italians in Milan. It’s where John Legend and his wife Chrissy got married. George Clooney has a house on the lake too.

Lake Como is absolutely breathtaking! We stayed at a B&B in Lecco run by Ginetta and Fulvio. They were fantastic host who gave us tips about where to go and where to eat. Their place is nesseled between the lake and the Alps. We found them on airbnb! $60 each for 2 nights, which included breakfast.

(View from the terrace. Yes, those are the Swiss Alps.)

When me and Z realized how close we were to Switzerland, we couldn’t leave without crossing the border. We spent our 2nd day in Switzerland. In order to get to Switzerland, we drove from Lecco to Varenna and took a ferry over to Menaggio. (It’s so fun to say Italian words–try it) From Menaggio we drove to Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano was a cute town, right on the water. All of the major designer stores were at our finger tips. Not that it mattered, lol. I wasn’t coppin nothing. But I did get some infamous Swiss chocolate. It was sooooo good too. I tried to save some to bring back to the states. Didn’t happen.

Before we left Switzerland we sipped hot cocoa at a cute Cafe where we met some other Americans. It’s always cool to run into Americans in other places. Eventhough you don’t know them, you still feel a slight connection to them.