Paintings of France, Italy and Beyond

View from the Villa Monestero

12 07 2006

On another day at Lake Como we ventured out to another lakeside village called Varenna. Varenna is super charming; with very narrow streets and teetering stairways:

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We actually considered staying in Varenna, but opted instead for Bellagio. In hindsight, Varenna would have probably been almost as good a choice, but Bellagio won out for me because it seemed to be somewhat sunnier and had more of an open feeling to it. I honestly don’t think we could’ve gone wrong in either place though.

In keeping with the theme of this trip, in Varenna we did a TON of walking. One of the most beautiful places we visited was Villa Monestero. This villa used to be a convent but is now open for conferences and classes, and the gardens are open to the public. We spent a good deal of time checking out the gardens, which had an amazing array of plants and trees:

Here’s Dave at the start of our tour:

This is a painting I completed of a scene we admired that day. This is a view looking out from the lakeside garden promenade. It’s called “Lakeside View” and measures 24×30″.

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