Here was the plan. Fly to Italy on Tuesday. Return Friday afternoon and land at Newark Airport at 1:00 pm. Then somehow get to LaGuardia Airport in time for a 4:30 pm flight to Chicago. At my age, that might sound a little ambitious.
My wife and I already had tickets to Chicago to spend the weekend with our grandson Ian and his wife Alex. But my son Peter had just made an offer on a condo on the eastern shore of Lake Como, in the town of Abbadia Lariana, and he planned a quick trip to see it. Leave Tuesday. Return Friday. Somehow I got talked into going with him. ChatGPT estimated that if the flight from Italy arrived on time, I had about a 90 percent chance of making the connection—assuming we could get through immigration quickly and get into a car where Peter’s lead foot would carry us from Newark to LaGuardia before Friday afternoon traffic completely shut things down. If the flight arrived more than an hour late, the odds dropped dramatically.
We arrived Wednesday morning time to check into the Park Hotel and have lunch in the Babadulac. I love Italy and always consider it my adopted country but one can’t write about Italy without at least some mention of the food. Suffice to say the lunch menu and food were great, which prompted us to return for dinner. Peter had tagliato di manzo and I had spaghetti alla vongole. But the dinner menu was not the same and was a big disappointment. We convinced the chef to make two lunch dishes for us.
The trip itself was reasonably successful even though the condo we went to see was a diaappointment. We drove around, familiarizing ourselves with the area in a way we never did when we lived in Italy many years earlier. And more important, we brushed up on our rusty Italian. We were able to see other properties on both sides of the lake, finding two beauties in the town of Gravedona. Details another day.
On Thursday night we ate at the restautant in the Hotel Victoria in Varenna. Peter had the cotoletta Milanese and I had beef with mushroom sauce. But what was memorable and what I remember best was the best tiramisu I ever had.
Friday morning we left about 6:30 am for the long drive to Malpensa Airport. We made it with time to spare and the flight, to satisfy my 90% probability arrived on time. We had enough time to go to my house, pick up my wife and take an Uber to LaGuardia avoiding Peter’s lead foot.
We arrived in Chicago without problems and the weekend with Ian and Alex was great including, on Sunday, at Geraldine’s restaurant, one of the best brunches we ever had.
The flight home was fast and pleasant in a new plane, a Boeing 770-max8. My only real complaint was the walking, walking, walking in airports with sore knees. Immediately upon arriving at home, we picked up our dog Grace and my life is now bordering on normal although Grace is not quite herself yet.