{"id":777,"date":"2026-02-23T16:37:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T16:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/?page_id=777"},"modified":"2026-02-23T16:37:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T16:37:28","slug":"varenna2021","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/travel\/varenna2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Varenna, 18 August 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a&nbsp;relatively thorough exploration of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/travel\/lierna2021\/\">Lierna<\/a> and a&nbsp;rather demanding stretch along the Sentiero del Viandante, I&nbsp;finally reached Varenna. At&nbsp;the same time, I&nbsp;also reached the conclusion that&nbsp;I had slightly overestimated my&nbsp;own strength&nbsp;&mdash; probably because, before setting off, I&nbsp;had not imagined the actual level of&nbsp;difficulty of&nbsp;that particular trail. In&nbsp;short, I&nbsp;realised&nbsp;I was far too exhausted to&nbsp;end the day with even a&nbsp;superficial study of&nbsp;another town. With a&nbsp;titanic effort (and in&nbsp;the hope of&nbsp;finding a&nbsp;shaded bench), I&nbsp;dragged myself through a&nbsp;few streets of&nbsp;Varenna and took only a&nbsp;handful of&nbsp;photographs.<br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka1\"><\/a>The historic centre of&nbsp;Varenna makes a&nbsp;very pleasant impression, but it&nbsp;is&nbsp;absolutely packed with tourists: it&nbsp;was probably the most crowded place&nbsp;I encountered during the summer of&nbsp;2021. In&nbsp;the streets near the lake, one moves at&nbsp;the pace of&nbsp;a&nbsp;relaxed crowd drifting in&nbsp;various directions. The more or&nbsp;less deserted streets of&nbsp;the centre do&nbsp;exist, but they are extremely rare and all located far from the water.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna01.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka2\"><\/a>Very few tourists, however, notice the most interesting water in&nbsp;the area: that of&nbsp;the Fiumelatte, a&nbsp;tributary of&nbsp;Lake Como barely 250 metres long. It&nbsp;is&nbsp;a&nbsp;seasonal river, flowing roughly from March to&nbsp;October. Its colour (and therefore, most likely, its name) is&nbsp;due to&nbsp;the rapid movement of&nbsp;the water over a&nbsp;highly irregular riverbed&nbsp;&mdash; in&nbsp;general, an&nbsp;entirely normal mountain phenomenon.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna02.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Fiumelatte in a hamlet of Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka3\"><\/a>Traditionalist tourists, however, prefer the view of&nbsp;the lake. Almost the entire lakeside of&nbsp;Varenna is&nbsp;occupied by&nbsp;hotels, tourist establishments and ferry landings.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna03.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka4\"><\/a>Various types of&nbsp;boats depart from Varenna towards different towns along the shores of&nbsp;the lake.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna04.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka5\"><\/a>In&nbsp;Varenna too&nbsp;&mdash; as&nbsp;in&nbsp;many neighbouring municipalities&nbsp;&mdash; annual flowers account for a&nbsp;large share of&nbsp;the public greenery.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna05.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka6\"><\/a>Street-name signs stand out only for their minimalism.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna06.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka7\"><\/a>The benches, on&nbsp;the other hand, are often original. And some of&nbsp;them are even in&nbsp;the shade&nbsp;&mdash; celebration!<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna07.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka8\"><\/a>In&nbsp;certain areas the municipality has economised on&nbsp;building proper pavements, but not on&nbsp;the paint used to&nbsp;create graphic ones. I&nbsp;have already seen pedestrian areas separated from the roadway by&nbsp;nothing more than a&nbsp;simple white line, but this is&nbsp;the first time&nbsp;I have encountered one entirely coloured. I&nbsp;do not know why it&nbsp;was done this way; certainly, from a&nbsp;practical point of&nbsp;view, the colour does not guarantee greater safety.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna08.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna, a painted sidewalk\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka9\"><\/a>It&nbsp;is&nbsp;interesting to&nbsp;note that on&nbsp;some residential buildings (apartment blocks?) shared by&nbsp;several families, the letterboxes displayed are stylistically very different from one another.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna09.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\n<a name=\"fotka10\"><\/a>Meanwhile, the cobblestones marking the boundary of&nbsp;a&nbsp;private property contain three times as&nbsp;many letters as&nbsp;those seen on&nbsp;99% of&nbsp;pavements in&nbsp;Lombardy.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/travelfoto\/varenna2021\/varenna10.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Varenna\"><br \/>\nAnd that is&nbsp;all&nbsp;&mdash; I&nbsp;have nothing else interesting to&nbsp;show you this time. I&nbsp;promise to&nbsp;return to&nbsp;Varenna soon: I&nbsp;know it&nbsp;has many beautiful and intriguing places. Next time, however, I&nbsp;should probably visit before exhausting my&nbsp;physical strength.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The photographic account of a tourist visit to Varenna on 18 August 2021. My impression of the place: worth seeing! Perhaps&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":206,"menu_order":86,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-777","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/777\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}