Squirrelican and Pemikan go North!

For my parents last weekend here we went on a little trip up north to Lake Como. It was almost like being back in Park City, surrounded by mountains and trees which were full of red and yellow leaves. But with a giant lake in the middle.
Our first night in Lake Como, which we spent in the town of Como, we stumbled across a road race! There were 92 cars all setting out one at a time to compete. It was quite the event and a really fun spontaneous thing to run into in quaint Como. In true Moffitt style we got up the next day and embarked on a Trek. Yes the guide book even called it a Trek. We decided not to do the 19 hour one, and instead took the funicular up the mountain into a hamlet which overlooked a section of the lake. It was so refreshing up there, and we mini-trekked to the Volta Light house for a picnic and Chestnut collecting.
The gate keeper of the light house showed up halfway through our picnic. He was about 85 and the perfect picture of a small rural Italian man. We paid to climb the light house just to give him a purpose, and he insisted on us first posing for some pictures and taking some brochures. When we came back down he had three cups of coffee waiting for us! Such a sweet man! I wanted to take him home, or at least be able to talk to him and hear his life story, but in my horrid Italian all I managed to ask was where he lived, to which he answered in Como City.
That day we packed up our stuff and took a ferry about an hour up the lake to Bellagio; the town is situated where all three fingers of the lake meet, or as Rick Steve's says, the crotch of Lake Como. The town was amazing, similar to cinque terre but with more of a Switzerland feel.
We stayed in Hotel Bellagio, which no, looked nothing like the Las Vegas version, but we did have a terrace that overlooked the lake. And the best part, we could see George Clooney's Villa from our terrace! Can't beat that!
We spent the next day walking around the town and into nearby hamlets. We found a self-service milk place, where they took local milk and made it into great yogurt and cheese and even had a milk vending machine outside. For dinner Friday night we went to this great restaurant for local pasta and meats, accompanied with a waiter who gave us all the scoop on the best appertivo in Milan....forewarning us that the place he recommend was actually a gay bar.
Saturday we said goodbye to Bellagio and got on the train Milan. Milan was big! Pretty architecture and lovely designer stores, but it did not seem to have any charm or character of it's own. We got to see the cathedral and the amazing shopping mall which seemed to be a work of art to itself. The main point of our visit was to see the Last Supper painting, which completely lived up to what I imagined. It was so big and still had such an auro of spirtualness about it. After seeing that we decided to continue on our art/da Vinci theme and went to an old fort which was now a museum. There was a whole room that da Vinci had painted and one of Michelangelo's unfinished statues of Mary holding Jesus, a pieta to be exact. That night we found an amazing appetivo place (not in a gay bar) with a spread that you can't imagine. Multiple kinds of pasta, chicken and potatoes, sauerkraut, mini-pizzas and bruschetta! So good! I then had to get on a train and say goodbye to my parents so that I could get back to school and they could go home. All that was waiting for me at home was Mid-terms and a dinner that needed to be cooked for myself.