September 24, 2022
To Varese: Staying dry with Plan B
The weather forecast for Como was pretty much bang on. Rain showers began at 08:00 hours and went throughout the day. Today's Plan B was a regional train to Varese which is located about halfway to our planned riding destination of Sesto Calende. Varese seemed like a good place to stop and wait out the rain. It is the capital of Varese province so it should provide a number of options.
By train, Varese is less than an hour from Como with a half dozen stops in between the two towns. The train was new and spacious with plenty of room for our bikes. Very few passengers boarded the train at any of the stops. At the first stop when we entered Switzerland two Swiss Customs officers boarded the train and completed a walk through but did not ask anyone for identification. They stayed on the train until it left the Swiss territory and then got off. Back into Italy, there were a few more stations until the last stop at Varese.
From the train station in Varese we cycled about a kilometre in the rain to the Hotel Crystal. This short distance convinced us that taking a train was the right decision for us. Riding in the rain is no fun.
The day was pretty much a write off but as the hotel had much better wifi than our room in Como, it did allow us to catch up on the blog and complete other communication.
We stayed in the city center and Varese looks like a nice place with many shops, bars and restaurants. We picked a nice restaurant for dinner but unfortunately reservations were necessary - it is Saturday night after all! A back up restaurant took us in but asked that we be out by 9 pm. This would be not a problem. After dinner we had a quick walk back to our hotel for the rest of the evening. The reviews for the hotel warned that the noise from a nearby bar goes late into the night. Unfortunately, we can confirm the reviews were right.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Tomorrow's weather forecast shows a drying trend in the morning so the plan will be to complete the final short 30 kms to Sesto Calende. Fingers crossed.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 8 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 2 |