driving stress Milan Malpensa to Lake Como and a hotel rec.
 

We just returned from Lake Como and although we stayed in a perfectly lovely hotel, Hotel Villa Stupenda in Bellano (just 10 minutes north of Varenna), my husband says he will NEVER drive in Italy again. They simply do not believe in road signs.

We drove from Milan Malpensa to Bellano and took a route off the main roads in favor of directness. Disaster. However, going back to catch our flight out of Malpensa we were to take only 3 main highways. As we approached Milan to change to the second of the three, we encounterd no sign, marked exit or indication for that road. Thus after sitting in terrible traffic on what became obviously the wrong road, we stopped for advice (always stressful in foreign country on the way to catch an international flight) and even then had to backtrack when we happened to see a sign behind us for our exit after we had passed it for those going the opposite direction.

I compare this to driving in Spain and France which were both very easy with roads clearly marked. We even remarked that driving in Mexico City was easier than driving in Italy.

Hotel Villa Stupenda was great. We had a suite with a private balcony on the lake for 210 euros/night and of course breakfast was included. Really pretty hotel with great staff.