We woke up to the sound of Omar screaming and yelling 'che cosa', Omar is the son of the owners of the Barchetta Hotel. It was about 9Am, and we got packed and ready to head over to Varenna. After a quick breakfast and a few more minutes at the internet cafe, we checked out, jumped in the car, and hopped on the ferry to Varenna. Varenna is a beautiful little town on the East coast of the Lake Como. Unfortunately it took us about a half hour to find a parking spot, but once we did, we really started to enjoy the town. We got on our bikes around 2:30, so it was going to be another easy/short ride. We rode up the coast for about 5km and then turned right and immediately started climbing. After an hour or so we came upon a bunch of donkeys to which Angela had to say 'ciao'. I had grabbed the ride off of MapMyRide - and it was great. We climbed about 3200 ft or so in about 13 miles (well, 10mi if you don't count the first 5km of flat). The views of lake Como were awesome - the slight haze in the air kept the pictures from showing the true beauty, but damn it was nice.
The climb wasn't crazy, but stayed around 7-10% for most of the climb, with some 11-13% thrown in just for fun. Again, the altitude here makes it feel soooooo easy to climb and not feel like you are hurting at all. We'll see if we feel like that tomorrow when we get to Bormio!