Tour Report - Lake Como, Italy, Oct 2024
When you’re on the coach heading for your hotel at the start of the holiday, there can be few better messages to receive than “There’s a Wine Festival in front of the Hotel!”. Indeed there was, and some of the advance party (the group from Manchester) were already making the most of it.
The hotel was in the main square of the city, overlooking the Lake. You could not define a more perfect setting. And within 200yards of a huge selection of restaurants.
Como is one of THE places in the world to visit and it’s easy to see why. It is situated at the southern end of a beautiful lake and surrounded by mountains (some snow-topped in the distance) with impressive villas hanging on the hillsides.
The city is full of high-class restaurants and even more upmarket shops. It would be easy to spend all day (and a lot of money) wandering the narrow streets and admiring the architecture.
However, we were there to play golf. Each morning a coach would collect us from the hotel and take us to that day’s course. All four were different but all four were excellent. Villa D’Este is one of the highest-rated courses in Italy and obviously one of the oldest. The clubhouse would grace any club in the UK.
Monticello is a traditional parkland course with multiple lakes creating additional problems, especially for Gillian Curley who somehow managed to fling one of the lifebelts into the water….fortunately she was not inside it at the time.
Menaggio was our third course and the most distant from Como. But well worth the trip, which was anyway all along the west side of the Lake. The course is high in the mountains and the views are nothing short of spectacular. Rumour has it that George Clooney is a member, which wouldn’t be a surprise, it is the perfect “little gem”. Barrie Luscombe did attempt to reduce the ambience with a s***k from the 18th fairway which almost took out a clubhouse window!
Finally we travelled to Carimate, another lovely course surrounded by impressive villas. Definitely a buggy course with a couple of long walks green to tee, but with spectacular holes and difficult scoring.
Overall we were very lucky with the golf. There was a lot of rain about during the week and the previous month had been extremely wet, but everyone completed 18 holes every day and loved every minute.
We were even more fortunate with our “course guides”. Sue Lockley and Linda Hill were “off games” but joined us on the course, told us when we were on the wrong hole and helped us find balls. We were very grateful!!!
Of course this was Italy, and that means food.
Being in the centre of the city we had literally hundreds of restaurants to choose from.
Although it was October, most nights we could sit outside.
One group found a place where the owner provided a serenade to go with the food.
Two days were spent “at leisure” as the travel agents say. For most people this meant a trip to the top of the mountain on the funicular, a ferry to the picturesque town of Bellaggio or just wandering the streets people-watching (oh, and stopping for coffee and lunch). One group decided to walk down the mountain (not simple as you can see) and the Mosers took the train to Milan.
Prizegiving was held over dinner in the hotel. Everyone won a prize because everyone deserved one. New friendships were made and old ones were rekindled.
And everyone should go to Como at least once.
