"Hiking" in Como

Guess what?? This post is mostly pictures! Yay!!

Yesterday, I set out to explore the Como area more. So far I have been in Como, and it's beautiful. It's very Colorado/Alaska-y but with a decidedly Italian twist. This time, I went up to Brunate.

I live where the blue dot is and Brunate/Como are where the red "a" is. 

I took the train into Como, and then, took the Funicular up to Brunate.

The funicular is basically the world's least exciting roller coaster, but it was still fun to ride up and down. They actually have two cars running in opposite directions, but only a single track. So there are several minutes where you are staring down the face of another car with no where to go until the last second when the track splits into two parts, so you can cross. It's all very anticlimactic when you are expecting to crash and tumble down the side of the mountain.

View on the way up!

There were some really cool houses in
the town!

This is the view from the first "level" of the town. I was impressed
until I got all the way up!

I walked around the lowest tier of the town for a while and enjoyed the sights. That's when I decided seeing the lighthouse would be cool. Little did I realize that it was a 45 minute hike straight up hill. That really completed the Colorado feeling because I felt like I was making the long, steep hikes up to the rock climbing I did last summer.

Okay, "hike" is a bit of a strong word because it was paved, or semi-paved, the entire way, and I did the whole thing in my boots, the fashionable kind, not the practical kind. But that doesn't reduce what a good cardio work out it was!

This part was more paved than the rest of it. 

Along the way, I saw some cool sites around the town:

I jumped a fence to get up close to this tower. There were stairs leading up top but
I think it was actually on private property, so I didn't go up.

This was a cool house that seemed to belong somewhere in Germany.

Views like this made me think "Colorado."

There are little shrines and statues like this all over Italy. They're very cute. 

After quite a trek up the hills, I made it to the top. The views were incredible and the lighthouse was cool.

This is a kinda cheesy sun-emerging-from-the-clouds-behind-a cross picture. But it's just legitimately what was happening while I was taking the picture. 

Sometimes, I just really like to use the "hipster" setting on my iPhone camera...

This is the lighthouse. 

                 And here's the view:

If you click on the pictures, they get bigger!