As with every memorable life experience….its about the people. It’s the people who in some fashion touched our hearts and made an indelible sweet mark.
Here you see Wendy, the hotel hostess from Visgnola bidding us goodbye; the restaurant hostess (Louisa) and her maitre’de (Alberto) who urged us into their dining room that first rain drenched stressful night and had us sit for dinner instead of carry something out (we had our first bottle of red and Italian lasagna that night) and we returned for lunch two days later to visit them and have one of our most delectable lunches on our three week Italy tour; to Fanush, a fellow traveler (she was from Iran) who sat at the table beside us; and the sweet little girl flirting with me at breakfast our first morning in Visgnola.
People memories are like the salt you add to your favorite soup recipe because they enhance the experience so it’s flavor lasts forever in your soul.
I’ve decided to share a blog post I wrote about my first day in Italy. I’ll share it here so you can get a feel for my writing style for real:
5am 9/6/19:
After our first travel day ‘from hell’ we had collapsed into a deep sleep at around midnight. The sleep abandoned me around 5am. I pulled myself out of bed to look out the glass sliding doors leading to our hotel patio.
And there it was! Stunned at the beauty, and unable to move I gazed down at the valley where Lake Como was tucked into. The foothill mountains of the mighty snow peaked Alps towered massively over Bellagio and Varenna, and other little villages were clustered into tiny masses like beehives hugging rocks. I could sense the awakening busy-ness from the flickering lights of their day beginning.
It was the moment in the day where it’s not quite night anymore, nor has dawn fully declared herself. There were the soft muted tones of a gray sky with a lavender mist. Speckles of brilliant lights reminding me of lightening bugs in my front yard back home. The sun had not yet risen enough to outshine the specks of light from windows below. The valley below was still asleep except for the smattering of flickering evidence of early risers.
There are those who say Bellagio, Italy is the old-world cobbled street charm of long ago. The nooks and crannies of passage ways and sharp turns that make you soak in the wonder of times past and bustling shops. The delightful surprise of a hidden shop in a crooked alley or the aroma of the garlic that mingles with the smiles of vacationing Europeans walking past restaurants and gazing hungrily at the menus.
But, as I sit here on my patio in Visgonla and gaze at the site below, I say that Bellagio is the hum of life in the valley who’s sounds make their way up into the hills. It’s the breath of cotton that slowly floats along the mountain and hugs the terra cotta rooftops. It’s the steam of His breath that conceals the sigh of cars I can barely hear making their way into the waiting valley below where commerce and tourists await to grab hold of the day. It’s the white peaks of the southern Alps that roll towards the massive Lake Como and tower over the valley. And it’s the small buildings and homes nestled into its hills overlooking the lake.
Larry and I pulled ourselves together like two sleepy kids on Christmas morning. We made our way down a cobbled stoned passageway adjacent to our hotel to an establishment called the Corner Bar. It was the only place in this tiny hamlet to have something savory for breakfast. We were starving from our seemingly endless transatlantic travelling the day before and decided the one bakery in Visgnola could wait until later in the day. We had our first true Italian expressos! Larry enjoyed a ‘breakfast’ pizza and I had a hard-crusted prosciutto panini.
A little girl met my eyes and flirted with me. I played ‘hide and seek’ behind Larry’s broad shoulder with her. We lingered in this little bar/café for over an hour waiting for a morning shower to stop. Once it did, we took our first of numerous hikes down into the valley below. The beginning of what was the promise of adventure, deliciousness and wonder that we would share together for 3 whole weeks. Children on Christmas morning? We felt like children yes, but maybe it was more like we had died and gone to heaven.
My entry into Italy for the ‘trip of a lifetime’ was a long time coming. I’d dreamed about this first week of a nearly 30 day excursion for nearly two decades. I was, as God had encouraged me to do, ‘making memories’ for my daughters. Larry and I had saved up for a very long time to make this family event a reality.
Larry and I had booked an air b&b in Colico, at northern Lake Como, Italy for a week. Gearing up for this portion of our trip was fraught with anxiety and anticipation because my son in law, Chris, had injured his knee and required major surgery 10 days prior to our departure. He couldn’t confirm his joining us until the day before we all left. Larry and Chris and I were to fly together. My eldest daughterJulia and grandson Lucas, who were visiting my other daughter in Germany, would all rendezvous with us at the house in Colico on that same arrival day. In the end, Chris rallied in a full leg brace that scanned his thigh to his ankle. Chris is nearly 6 1/2 feet tall, so he was quite the site with backpack and crutches.
THE GOD PART
Prior to leaving I’d had a few ‘chats’ with Jesus. I’d been praying that God would bless this trip. I prayed that He would keep us safe and healthy and have his blessing over the full experience. And additionally I prayed that God would use Larry and me to be a blessing to all we came in contact with as we traveled. I reached out to some prayer warrior friends of mine to pray over the trip as well. Barbara and Mother Emily from All Saints Sisters Convent in Catonsville, Maryland prayed fervently for our health and safety. Barbara even sent me a text the night before we left. She wanted to let me know that she was also ‘praying that God will prevent any attack of the enemy in travel, relationships, and health!’
Thank God for my prayer warriors because I believe their prayers were acted upon by God who saved over a hundred people on the way to Lake Como, Italy on September 28, 2025. These prayers become front and center as I will document what occurred on our arrival to Italy.
THE BOULDER
We boarded a train to complete the last leg of arrival. The train would take us from Milan central train station to Colico (a 45 minute train ride). About 20 minutes into the route, about 15 minutes outside of Lecco, Italy north of Lake Como, the train stopped. We were not at another train station so we had no clue as to why the train stopped. The train conductor offered no explanation about the delay. I noticed people looking out the window and pointing to the expressway below and to our left. That’s when I saw the boulder.
A boulder the size of a car was sitting on the expressway 30 feet below our train car. For clarity for the reader; the rail tracks run parallel to the expressway and about 30 feet above it. The tracks are about 4 feet from the nearly vertical steep drop down to the road. To our right is a continuous mountainous wall of rock. This part of Italy, being so close to the Swiss Alps is mountainous with cliffs and rocks, evergreens and snow peaks and lots of tunnels. The wall of rock was the only view for the nearly 45 minutes ride to Lake Como.
Apparently, what had happened was this boulder tumbled from the cliff above, hit the rail tracks, damaged the electric cable that runs along the tracks, broke through the iron railing and landed onto the expressway. There were other rocks and smaller boulders on the track in front of the train which is why the train had stopped. There were no first responders there yet. This had occurred somewhere within 15-20 minutes of our arrival (It could have been seconds…I’ll never know for sure).
All I know is that our train was spared the impact that would have devastated the lives of everyone on board. And miraculously, it didn’t hit any car or kill anyone on the road below. It just sat their ‘innocently’ in the right lane of this 2 lane highway heading south. Some cars were stopped, with stunned drivers staring at the massive size of it. Others slowly drove around it and continued on their way.
THE AFTERMATH
On the train we began milling around the aisle. Travelers began talking to each other in wonder of what was happening. A baby cried in some rows away from us. The conductor shut off all power on the train which caused the inside to become immediately stuffy. One woman yelled “we’re all going to suffocate in here!!” Others tried to calm her down. But overall, most remained calm and curious.
If that boulder made impact with our train it would have, without a doubt, caused it to derail. A derailment of a train of 6 cars would have pulled the entire train down the 30 ft drop to the expressway below. It would have been a global news event. I found out later that the week prior to our arrival, it had rained ALOT! The Lake Como region had so much rain that there were mudslides as well as flooding. Its probable that all the rain had loosened the boulder’s stability on the cliff above. This makes me think about the potential hazard we were still in as we waited on the train for evacuation. We also milled around on the road just below the train for another nearly 1 hour.
The firetruck used their extension ladder with bucket to carry each and every passenger from the train track down to the expressway. We would get into the ‘bucket’ 1-2 people at a time. To watch Chris, ease himself ever so careful, full leg brace and all, into the bucket was a sight to behold. He stood 5-6 inches above the 2 fireman in the bucket with him. Luggage was brought down to waiting owners one at a time. With some back and forth and confusion I manage to get Chris into the ambulance to rest and elevate his leg. We put ice packs on his knee which was becoming swollen which concerned me a great deal.
It appears to me that in Italy, no one is in charge…and everyone is in charge. Between the firemen, the police and the ambulance drivers and eventual bus drivers, it was chaotic. Maybe it was an organized chaos. All I now is that we were all in harms way if more boulders and rocks came loose from above. The process of evacuating everyone and getting us to a safer location about 1/4 mile away (which we had to walk to) took over an hour. Was it the grace of God that kept the cliff intact enough so that no other boulders were dislodged by the gap left behind by the first boulder? We were essentially sitting ducks during that nearly 2 hours. . I guess we’ll never know, and by faith, I choose to believe it was the grace of God that kept us safe.
In the end, they managed to acquire 2 busses to transport us to the next train station so we could be on our way. I managed to get Chris a front row seat so we could stretch out his leg (no easy task when you don’t speak the same language as the rescue squad).
It was a phenomenal event which we can look back on as an adventure (because there was no tragedy that resulted). But more than anything this was a glory God moment. God heard my prayer for Larry and me to be a blessing to ‘anyone we came upon’ during our trip. And God heard the prayers for safety and protection from “any attack of the enemy” by my prayer warriors. The boulder could have fallen at the moment of our passing that exact spot, but it didn’t. Lives were saved on that day.
I’ll never know what might have happened on the Sept 28th 12:20pm train to Colico if Larry and I had not been on that train. All I do know is that if this were an an ‘attack of the enemy’; we were all shielded by the protection of Christ.
