Retirees go Abroad – Lake Como Italy
The Trouble with cheap airfares…..
Sunday morning and the alarm goes off at 4.30am. We are prepared to dress and catch the taxi we have booked for 5.00am to go to East Midlands Airport for our flight out at 7.40am. However despite the best laid plans we did not read all the endorsements on our tickets so we went through security to learn that we were supposed to get our tickets endorse with our passport check before going through security. This would not have been a problem if a particular Greek family had not delayed our clearance through security because they ignored every possible preparation before going through security – they had scissors, knives, aerosols and liquids all through their carry-on luggage. Now East Midlands may be a rural airport but it has 23 gates and during school holidays is really busy so our margin for error evaporated and instead of quietly having breakfast before catching the plane we were breaking our necks to get to the gate.
Oh a point to note even if you miss the passport check as we did, you can still get the check performed at the gate but they don’t like doing so.
The airport trauma behind us, we settled in for our flight to Bergamo. Ryanair is a true no frills airline and we purchased breakfast taking turns to eat because of the lack of space.
Arrived at Bergamo and picked up the car. Ooh an upgrade. A BMW station wagon. It is twice as big as the car Kerry wants so not a good start. Anyway we made it to our hotel Best Western at Cardano Al Campo by accident (spotted a sign on the side of the road) and at first when we first saw the building we were quite impressed. But it was deceiving.
The room was large and spacious but the carpet has seen a better day. We unpacked and went down to the bar for some lunch. Well the porter was called to serve us in the bar and the bar snacks were lasagne or cannelloni microwaved to death. Not a good start. We spent the afternoon walking around Cardano Al Campo centre (note to self – don’t expect anything to be open in an Italian village between 12.00 and 4.00 on a Sunday afternoon). But we did find a bar run by a Chinese expat from Tsin Jing and the local drunk who wanted to make friends and take us to dinner. We politely passed on the opportunity.
We decided to have dinner at the hotel which was a big mistake. We had the buffet which was cold when it was intended to be hot the fish was full of bones and the choice very limited. Most disappointing. After dinner we went to our room to plan our meeting with Roberto who was going to Lugano on a bus tour. But first I had a teleconference with Australia for three hours at midnight.
Photos of Cardona Al Campo on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
glendon1954 