Lenno

We have now been away a month, amazing how the time flies. Weather was appropriate to June today, about 25 degrees and brilliant sunshine. This is a "bank holiday" weekend and it certainly showed in Lenno today. The bar we chose for lunch was busier than I have ever seen it, even inside all the tables were occupied. Lunch was followed by an ice cream and then the walk up the hill to the apartment.

Prior to all these gastronomic delights we walked over to the Villa Balbianello. This is Lenno's main tourist attraction. The villa was built in the late 1700s for Cardinal Durini. it changed hands several times, even belonging to an American general in the 1920s. Latterly it was owned by an Italian explorer, Guido Monzini, When he died in 1988 he left it in his will to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano together with a trust fund to help pay for the maintenance of the villa.

The villa is roughly a half hour walk from the apartment, all of it either downhill or uphill. The photograph here is taken in the loggia, part of the original construction, and is looking to the north, roughly in the direction of Bellagio. The plants entwined around the pillars are roughly 150 years old. Many tourists at the Villa, but for once at least as many Italians as foreigners.

James Bond came to the Villa del Balbianello in the film Casino Royale to recover from his injuries. Somehow I doubt Daniel Craig had to make a 20 minute walk through the woods to get to the Villa. I suspect he arrived by a fast boat from the Villa D'Este. Although not visible from the Villa Balbianello, Richard Branson has a villa just a couple of hundred yards from here.