Family Friendly Varenna Italy

Happy Sunday,

This is the first of a series of travel posts from our recent trip to Italy.  Traveling internationally with our little family has been a dream of our for the past 5 years. We were able create it and live it with 3 amazing weeks in Italy. I'll be writing about each of the places we visited and how we made it family friendly and how bringing our little one actually changed the trip to encourage us to slow down and truly savor life in Italy.

I'll be intermixing these with my regular content, so if you have no interest in travel or Italy, stay tuned for more content on staying present with your family and in your life.

Varenna

Varenna is a beautiful small village of roughly 800 people. It’s easy to drive to and also accessible by train. It has a lovely strolling walkway, a small harbor, cobblestone pathways with lots of stairs and picturesque views everywhere. It is the perfect place for a family to enjoy time together on the cobblestone streets, visit a castle with a falconry, hike a steep trail, have the kids play in one of the most beautiful playgrounds in the world and just sit an enjoy delicious cappuccinos by Lake Como.

Varenna is very quiet at night, a wonderful place to relax and the first place on our trip to recover from jet lag. We rented a small apartment overlooking Lake Como for 4 nights. We spent 24 hours door to door traveling from Phoenix, AZ to Varenna, Italy. Our flight was late leaving out of Phoenix and we missed our connection in Heathrow due to this change in flight time. If you are ever flying out of Heathrow on a connection, I would highly recommend a 4-5 hour layover. As you will need to board a bus to get to your next terminal and go through a very thorough security line to get into your next terminal . There is a wonderful playground in the airport where we spent a couple hours and decent food.

Our 5 year old slept on the plane during our red-eye flight out of Phoenix, however, we did not, as our darling little boy was sprawled out between us and taking up all 3 seats. I did have the opportunity to watch 4 different movies, which was a rare treat. We had rented a car to drive from Milan to Varenna, and it took 2 hours to get through the car line and receive our car, then another 2 hours to drive through endless roundabouts to get to Varenna. We had considered staying the night in Milan, however, decided against it as we didn’t want to travel again. In the end, we would make that same decision again and hope our first flight is on time. We were very thankful for our maps on our phones guiding us through each of the 200 roundabouts and showing us exactly where to to get off. It was pitch black as we were driving, so there was no view to speak of.

When we woke up the next morning, we were stunned to see the beauty of Lake Como. It truly is a breathtaking site. Our apartment was directly on the lake and we had a small balcony overlooking the water. Now for some reason, this Italian rental company doesn’t consider soap and toilet paper necessities for a 4 day stay, so we had to find a grocery store rather quickly. Lesson learned: bring travel toilet paper and soap!  We were able to wander around the stunning lakeside town and just relax. We found a restaurant with soy cappuccinos, most places did not carry soy milk, so it was a pleasant surprise. We found a fun playground for our son that overlooked the lake and ferry boarding area. It was a pleasure to just sit and watch him, the lake, and people strolling by. Life moves at a very different pace in smaller lakeside towns and it was wonderful to be in the midst of it.

There is a beautiful stroll, passarella, along an elevated walkway along the shore. It connects the ferry dock to the the old town center. There are beautiful and expansive villas along the walk and great town views. We made this walk several times to get the to restaurants and gelato places along the walkway. We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Osteria Quatro Pass with fantastic homemade pasta and ate gelato at Gelateria Riva every single day. The owner Duiliu makes his gelato fresh each day and you can get a cone (must get a cone) and sit on the step overlooking the water. They even have pillows out for you to sit on. My absolute favorite flavor is nocciolo, as only in Italy do they make this just right. They also offered a couple wonderful dairy free flavors.

We hiked up to Castello di Vezio to see the falcons. As an occasional hiker, I found this hike to be challenging and steep.  The castle is a beautiful site to see once you get to the top of the hill. Be sure to check the times of the Birds of Prey show, we arrived just as it started, since I was the slow hiker, and had the opportunity to see 4 different birds including falcons and owls. You can find the details on their website for show times. The show is given in Italian, without translation, so be prepared. The castle is fun to walk around and up to the top of the turret for the view. My 5 year old had a blast with the birds and the view. It’s truly phenomenal and worth spending some time and great for pictures. There is an outdoor cafe at the castle that is fabulous for cold drinks and juice for the kiddos. We ended up leaving with a few postcards of the beautiful birds and couple of other trinkets.

We spent a great afternoon with Chef Moreno of Ristorante Il Caminetto in Fiumelatte. He came and picked us up at the ferry landing and zipped us up a very curvy mountain to his beautiful, intimate restaurant for lunch. Whoo-hoo Italian driving! The food was good, however the Italian experience was even better. His daughter drove us back down and even had a child seat in her car for our 5 year old. In hindsight, I’m not sure I would do this again as it took several hours. It was a fun experience, but a one time experience in my opinion. We would consider doing a cooking class there next time.

Riding the ferry was the best experience! The beautiful feeling of being on the water, looking at the beautiful Italian coastline and being in shock that our family was actually there—living our dream! We made a stop in Bellagio and found it to be very walkable and easy to get around. We ate gelato at the top of the town at Gelateria del Borgo, had a fabulous dinner at the top of a steep, cobble-stoned street at Trattoria San Giacomo and bought beautiful handmade wooden ships. We did not see George Clooney, it was fun to look though!

One of the challenges we ran into included parking. Parking is metered or for residents only. We spent a lot of time going to the meter to have our car close by our apartment. There were a few times we were very lucky to have missed a ticket, as there are ticket officers in force. There is a parking lot in town, however, it was fairly far to walk from our apartment. We stayed on the ferry landing side of town and it was perfect. The playground kept our kiddo entertained for long spells of time and my husband and I could have coffee, chat and people-watch on the busy walkway. It was so fun sharing the playground with so many different walks of life and languages. It truly was a highlight of the trip. From Varenna, we drove to the Venice airport to drop off our rental car…Stay tuned!

With gratitude,
Amisha

PS:Have you been to Italy? Comment below with your favorite places!

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