Lake Como & Milano, IT

March 3-6

Lombardy was somewhere I had long wanted to visit, and I'm glad I went, but I'll probably leave it at that. Getting off the train and seeing the mountains rise up around Como was a genuinely stunning first impression, and my hotel had incredible panoramic views over the lake. But Lake Como is one of those places that's almost too beautiful to be interesting. A day or two and you've seen what there is to see. Visiting in early March didn't help either. Bellagio was quiet to the point of feeling closed, with half the restaurants and shops still closed for the off-season. There was something peaceful about it, but it also drained the place of any real energy.

Milano was a similar story. I only had a day, but I tried to make the most of it. Milano Centrale alone was worth the visit, the sheer scale of that building doesn't feel real, like someone designed a train station and then forgot to stop. The Duomo is impressive, but the mob of tourists and pigeons around it made it hard to actually appreciate. The saving grace was stumbling into a quiet little restaurant in the Navigli area and having some of the best Osso Buco of my life, which might have been the highlight of the whole stop. Maybe I've been spoiled by everywhere else I've seen in Europe, but Lombardy just didn't do it for me the way the rest of the country did. Worth seeing once, and probably once is enough.