The town of Varenna sits on the shore of beautiful Lake Como in Italy. Varenna epitomizes the quaint, friendly “bello piccolo paese” (pretty little town) with all the simple necessities of life within a short walking distance with roads just barely wide enough for one car.
The morning after we arrived we headed out to the only hiking area nearby; Fiumelatte. With just a tiny path heading up to the mountain, we were having difficulty locating the beginning of the path. A local gentleman with his scant knowledge of English helped us despite our minimal fluency in Italian. Between broken Italian, broken English, and many hand gestures, he helped us find our way to the entrance of the path.
Much of the hike was walking up manmade rock steps through groves of chestnut oak and maple trees and winding past private vegetable and flower gardens. Colorful wildflowers bloomed all around, along with the dwarf dandelions popping up everywhere.
As we neared the top of the mountain, I glanced through the branches of the trees to see the most beautiful picture-perfect view of Varenna—the little town jutting into Lake Como with its impressive church steeple rising high above the quaint, colorful buildings. The sound of the church bells tolling could be heard throughout the valley and up the mountain to where we stood. With the view of the lovely town of Varenna and the majestic mountains in the distance, we knew this was the perfect place for Dave; a place with “una vista meravigliosa” (a breathtaking view).
We continued up the mountain to the Fiumelatte falls. Leonardo da Vinci once wrote that it’s the Fiumelatte “which falls high from more than 100 ells from the vein where it is born, straight down on the lake, with inestimable uproar and noise.” However, at the time of our visit, the falls were dry—typical for the month of September. I stood on the walkway over the falls and sprinkled some of Dave’s ashes on the rocks below knowing that when the falls ran again, they would be swept into beautiful Lake Como to be forever surrounded by the majestic mountains and the beauty of Italy.