This is a morning when I wish my ambitions and talents lay in words, crafting the words in a sequence and structure that could adequately describe this tiny medieval village and the enduring, exercise in perseverance, stations-of-the-cross-like experience one must mount to get here, when starting from The 'Kan EWA.

Even if I didn't remember the three plane changes, subsequent bus ride and the snaking, claimbing trek via train up, into and through the mountains, as I look out over the vibrant diamond of a lake, I would know I am in Italy becaue of the church bells--they ring at 6 pm for mass, again at 9 pm for vespers and now being the day at 7 am, ringing hourly, calling the faithful near.

The morning sun catches the terra cotta of the buildings, creating brilliant swatches of flashing amber in the cliffs that rise quickly and steeply from the lake.

The birds sing and whistle in the olive trees, so glad for the daylight, so glad for another chance in the new day, so glad to be here, in this Eden where the fruit in the gardens serves as inspiration and homage to douceur de vie rather than a temptation.

When we made our final climb via taxi to the steepest part of the cliff where our hotel lay, we passed a shrine to St. Anthony, carved into the sheer rock of the mountainside. Some things are all enduring, I guess. As so begins the Italian leg of the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Tour 2006. I was born in the mountains, I was raised in the mountains, I become of age and raised my own children in the mountains. But these mountains here....Lake Como is not an escape, but a return.

JBelle
On Location
Varenna, Italy