Friday day 4

Day 4 (Friday)
This was a great day because we had virtually nothing planned until evening. Diana and I walked down the road and got a chunk of Brie, a hard roll an apple and water. We then took the ferry across to Cadennabria, a town across Lake Como from Bellagia. We then took a great hike up up up to the chapel de S. Martine. It was a steep hike, but the path was wonderful and at every switchback there was a monument with painted ceramic tiles depicting a scene from the bible. It was a great excuse to stop and get our breath. There is a procession to the chapel every year and lots and lots of people make the journey to the chapel which is then open for a service. I can just see the 90 year old women walking this hill, saying prayers at every turn and not sweating a drop. We made it to the top to find an old man and his best friend. He wanted so much to talk with us and ask us our stories, but he was speaking such rapid-fire Italian that the only thing that I got was that he and his friend were friends for 40 years. We had our picnic and started the long journey back down. It was a glorious day and well worth the effort. Tonight we were treated to a brief concert by the Bellagio men’s choir. They sang about 5 songs for us and that just might have been the highlight of the trip so far. Everyone either had a great big grin on their face or tears dripping down their cheeks. We finished the day at our favorite restaurant up the hill from the hotel. It is a family owned restaurant, catering mostly from what we saw, not to tourists, but to locals. They were very nice to us and tolerant of our lack of Italian language skills. They hugged us good bye at the end of the evening.