The beautiful people

After farewelling Jennifer and Paul Sunday morning, we all had a very slow start. The sun was shining, there were books to be read, coffee to be drunk, and lots of lazing about to be done.

But we managed to rouse ourselves with the thought of a ferry ride to Bellagio for a late lunch (although Evan stayed behind with a cold) – 10 minutes across the lake from here, and famous for being the most beautiful town on the lake. Lake Como is a long skinny lake, running north to south, with two legs. We are on the western shore, and Bellagio is in the middle of the two legs (if it were a lesser town, perhaps the groin?).

Once we got there, we accidentally ended up in one of the compulsory instagram spots, while queuing for lunch – most of the other people there were queuing patiently and not so patiently, not for lunch, but for their turn for the perfect pose. The (usually) boyfriend would patiently take a bunch of pictures of different poses, and the very well dressed instagrammer would check them out before pronouncing herself satisfied and moving onto the next spot.

After lunch we decided we wandered around the beautiful gardens of the historic Villa Melzi , which are so instagrammable that there is a sign at the entrance saying that commercial photography is strictly forbidden (although it didn’t say how many followers an instagrammer had to have before becoming commercial).

I found a great photograph, but as I was patiently waiting for peope to get out of shot, I found myself shoo-ed out of the way by a succession of instagrammers who already knew that this was the place to go for that perfect pose.

So we retreated back to the ferry stop for gelato amused ourselves while waiting for our ferry by watching a succession of very well dressed people (including a bride and groom with their own photographer) get into the shiny wooden boats that serve as water taxis on this most stylish of Italian lakes. Some boarded their boats more elegantly than others… in the end we decided the bride and groom did it best (perhaps they had practiced?).

Bellagio – where the beautiful people go (and we do also).