Hello Giovanni and Isabella
We have finally written our review of our stay at Villa Annamaria and sent it in to Slow Travel today.
We very much enjoyed our stay with you this summer. Writing the review brought back wonderful memories of our time at your beautiful place and the experiences we had there.
THANK YOU again, for your help making arrangements for us to drop off the Hertz rental car on Saturday and for arranging the taxi to the Colico train station. Everything worked out great. Although just as we were about to arrive in Pientedo, I took a wrong turn and ended up on the highway (through all the tunnels) heading South instead of to Piantedo! Ahh!
I finally got to Bellano and turned around, but it caused us to be late by 20-25 minutes arrving in Piantedo. The lady from Hertz waited for us as did the taxi. They were both very understanding and kind to wait so patiently for us! If you speak to them again, please pass along our gratitude for their willingness help us on a Saturday and for waiting for us! We were very grateful!!
In the end it all worked out fine and we were in Colico with plenty of time to meet our train.
Attached is a picture we took of you both in Switzerland. That day was one of the highlights of our entire trip!!
Thank you! We hope to see you again!

Brent and Ingrid M.
SUMMER 2009 - Huntley, Illinois, USA

 

Dear Giovanni,

We would sincerely like to thank you for the wonderful time we had staying in your apartment Nelly while in Domaso from 13th to 20th Sept. You are not only a wonderful host but the best guiding factor while we were in Domaso. Without you, we would have been kind of lost and your advise of not travelling to Milan was the biggest highlites of our trip. Vikram and his wife from Bombay send their regards to you and your family.

take care,

Arvind M

INDIA - Fall 2008

 

Giovanni!

I hope I was able to reach you through one of these four email addresses. And if I reached you four times, I apologize for the overkill!

It has been over a week since Kiran and I left Lake Como for the sizzling Sardinian coast. And it has been almost one week since we both departed Sardinia for Barcelona, and then for North America. But whenever I think back on our trip – which was fantastic in so many respects – one of the things I cherish most is the warmth with which you and Isabelle welcomed us into your home and to Domaso. I will savor many fond memories of our days at Villa Annamaria.

Speaking of which, I have photos for you! They are not the cliff-jumping videos that we promised – those are still forthcoming – but they are a little something to hold you over until then. The first two are self-explanatory. The third is a shot of Kiran and me the night that we dined at Albergho Milano, my favorite restaurant of the trip. The fourth is a shot of Kiran and our waitress in the wine cellar at the magnificent Lanterna Verde. Yesterday I shared with my parents the bottle of Sfursat that I purchased from that very wine cellar. My father, a wine connoisseur himself, was floored!

I am already looking forward to a return trip to the Villa Annamaria, but in the meantime, I will sing its praises to loud and wide…like the church bells down the street that ring every half hour, all night long. J Please share our pictures with Isabella, and convey our thanks and regards to her! We’ll drop you a line again when we have the video up and running on YouTube.

Kind regards,

K. Silvi - Yale

summer 2008

 

Dear Giovanni,

Hope all is going well with you - I wish we were still in Italy, it was the best vacation ever !!!!! Did your roof repair go well? When we left, you were just getting ready to have the roof done and were concerned about rain and the ceiling frescos.

Barry's brother Glenn went to the Troy Design Center and saw your cousin Elizabeth (Litzey?). She has a beautiful shop, and Glenn is going to buy some mosaic tiles from her.

I am sure we will be back. Barry is retiring at the end of February, and every other day he talks about going back to Italy again.

Thank you again for your wonderful hospitality - your villa is absolutely lovely and in a great location, but your personal attention and help to all of your guests made our stay there the very best in Italy. We will definitely recommend Villa Annamaria to everyone going to Italy.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and happy holiday season.

Barry & Peggy Taylor - Michigan, USA - Fall 2006

Giovanni, we want to thank you and Isabella for the opportunity to stay at Nelly in Domaso. It was everything we hoped it would be! Thank you also for accommodating my sons (and girlfriend) at the last minute! Everyone was wonderful. I am sure that we will be back someday. Domaso is beautiful, we loved driving up behind the Villa to the small towns. The views were spectacular. You and Isabella were wonderful and we truly appreciated the stay. It was one of the highlights of our trip to Italy and we went to many towns, including Monaco, but the stay at Nelly was the best!
Thank you again, Michael & Ginny Norred, Phoenix, Arizona, USA. - Spring 2006

This is a belated thank you for being such a gracious host. We meant to contact you sooner but we hit the ground running when we returned to Michigan. We loved Anna Maria and felt very comfortable there. We thought Domaso was beautiful and found plenty to keep us busy. We were in Italy for a month and our stay at the Villa Anna Maria was the highlight! We hope some day to return but for now have many great memories.

Grazie Mille,

The Walkers - summer 2005

meanwhile we are back in Germany and the Netherlands. We both had a really nice time in your apartment and felt there very comfortable. The condition was as described on your website and you are a very kind landlord everytime willing to help. Defintely we shall recommend your Villa Annamaria to our friends as an ideal place for resting.

Kind regards from Hamburg & Maastricht

Thomas & Dorette - Spring 2005

Just to thank you very much for your warm hospitality and the comforts of apartment 'Nelly'. We had a wonderful stay and were sad to leave the beautiful lake behind (but not sorry to wave goodbye to the bells) We had a good drive back - we did not stay in France but continued home arriving back before midnight.

Best Wishes,

The Stewart family

UK - Summer 2004

My 16-yr. old granddaughter was with me for the first two weeks; I was alone there for the last two. While she was with me, I had planned in advance a 6-day whirlwind tour of places in Northern Italy that I thought would be particularly enjoyable for her (Cremona, Mantova, Verona & Venice). We left on this jaunt about 3 days after our arrival at Villa Annamaria, connecting to the train station in Colico via the local bus. This bus runs frequently and regularly (back and forth) between the town of Como, at the southern end of Lake Como, and Colico. The bus trip between Domaso and Colico takes about 15-20 minutes. Trains north and south are frequent, so there are many, many places easily accessed. When we returned from our jaunt on a Sunday, we had been well-advised by Giovanni to take care to arrive at the Colico train station in time to catch the last bus toward Domaso, which on Sunday left around 6 PM, I think. (I was there for the month of September; summer months may have more frequent service.)

On another occasion, later in my stay in Domaso, I did the bus-train connection to visit Bergamo on a weekday. This worked very well. Using this system, there are many places you can visit for the day.

You can easily visit all of the places on Lake Como via the ferries and hydrofoils (rapido) that make the rounds to almost every town. This is a really delightful way to experience the lake. The only drawback to staying in Domaso is that, in September, the service is somewhat reduced to that end of the lake. However, with careful planning, you can leave on an early boat, spend a few hours at your destination, have lunch, and catch the boat back to Domaso mid-afternoon. Again, I believe that summer schedules are much better. The Lake Como towns most desirable to visit are: Bellagio (avoid Sunday!), Menaggio, Tremezzo (to visit the must-see Villa Carlotta and its lovely gardens), and my very favorite, Varenna (the most beautiful village in Italy, some think).

I enjoyed many aspects of Domaso. First of all, and most memorable, is the setting. The mountain/lake scenery there is almost surreal, it is so spectacular. It is much less touristy than other "hot-spots" on the lake, such as Varenna and Bellagio. Domaso is noted for its wind surfing and camping, so the grocery stores, etc. cater to the mostly Swiss, Austrian and German crowd that come there. This is a good thing, as one is able to find small sizes in grocery items you need for the kitchen. In Domaso, one has the experience of observing small-town Italian life more keenly than you would in one of the touristy places. I loved the church bells ringing, just up the street at the town's pretty Duomo. I enjoyed hikes up through the town's small, ancient, walled lanes to the villages high above. I found the goods and services plentiful (including Internet cafes in a couple of bars), and all within easy walking distance of the Villa Annamaria. There are many good, reasonably priced restaurants in Domaso. I went to Il Timone several times (excellent pizza, etc. - great family favorite). Also enjoyed Da Mario (down under the arches on the main road), and La Contrada (just around the corner from the Villa - food is superb, great for a splurge). I really enjoyed sitting at one of the lakeside terraces at either end of Domaso at sunset, sipping a glass of Prosecco. The view from the lakeside terrace at Il Pescatore (way up at the eastern end of the Domaso commercial strip) is particularly spectacular.

This was my second visit to Lake Como. The year before, I stayed in Varenna for a week. It was truly lovely, but my time in Domaso was better. You don't say how long you may stay on Lake Como, or what time of the year, but I think Domaso is a special, low-key choice for a restful family visit. There are plenty of things for children to do there, it seems. The Gottis have 3 very pleasant children. The daughter, Anna, is about 8 now, I think. The boys are a bit older.

As you can tell, I did a lot of walking, which I love. Helps negate the gelato effect! One thing I would warn against though is renting a car. The village streets (everywhere) are so narrow, the parking difficult, and out on the main roads, the drivers are maniacs. It's really treacherous, believe me! Public transportation is excellent all over Italy. You can get anywhere at all, even the tiniest, most remote villages, by bus or train. Americans often make the mistake of being in too much of a hurry, trying to cover too much ground in a short amount of time. Relax, slow down and enjoy what's around you... experience the real Italy like the Italians!

Mrs. Elizabeth E.

Baltimore MD - Fall 2003

Hello Giovanni, I hope that you've found both keys - my Ma and Sister afterwards criticised me, because I left the description where you could found the key IN the appartment. But I relied on the fact that you should have doubles of it. And as I did not hear a HELP !! call, it should be o.k.??

Once again: We enjoyed a lot the stay in the wonderful affresco appartment, the atmosphere in the house is wonderful, even the Eros Ramazotti sounds varying with solme piano lessons are harmonising perfectly! And - certainly - I would recommend the Villa Annamaria to friends and hope to come back some time myself. As we didn't manage to visit your recommended outlet factory center, it is is MUST, isn't it??
But - honestly - the wonderful villages on the lake with their villas and
landscapes were just too attracting to enter the inner side of a factory
store. The one day where our credit cards were in danger, we finally decided to go to Milano - by car, which is perfectly easy during ferragosto!

Ciao from Brussels

Christine - summer 2003

We enjoyed staying at your nice home. We could see that you have put a lot of effort and expense into making it comfortable. We especially appreciated being able to talk with you, the convenient location where we could stroll to the Lake or ferry, sitting in the lovely yard and a good plumbing system. Domaso has a beautiful setting especially with the high mountains in the distance. Please say hello to Luciano the sailor. He was so kind to take Russ for a sail around the point to his mooring by the yacht basin one evening.

Yours,

Lois and Russ F. - Hamilton - Canada - 2003

P.S. Our trip to Malpensa went very smoothly

Ecco, siamo finalemente arrivati senza problemi. Ti ringraziamo molto per la tua ospitalità e per un splendido appartamento. Complimenti per il sito internet che rappresenta bene il prodotto. Per quanto riguarda l’orologio, l’abbiamo trovato nella mia valigia. Pare che ce l’avevo messo io. Quanto mi sentivo colpevole d’aver accusato mia figlia. Arrivederci,

Véronique, Pauline e Leigh - France - 2003

Thank you so very much for a truly WONDERFUL experience at Villa Annamaria! It is said in marketing that one should strive to exceed the customer’s expectations, and you did that in every way! My mother and I were delighted. I am sorry we had to leave (and arrive) at such nocturnal hours, but such were the demands of Ryan Air, and some other constraints I had to work with (like meeting my wife later that day art London Heathrow).

Thank you once again………..

Colin G. UK - 2003

Dear Giovanni,

firstly, the photos on the website does neither the apartment nor the location any justice. Just walking in through the front doors and seeing the frescoes made us feel as if we were somewhere special and we were amazed initially by the size of the Villa, and the facilities in Nelly.

We had very warm reception from both you and your wife, which was welcome after a long right handed drive from Venice! It was a real home-from-home, throughout the apartment, with nick nacks and books galore in all languages. The kitchen was great for breakfasts and there were all the cooking utensils we needed and more! We found the rooms to be large and spacious, without feeling lost, and we loved having such a large bathroom with 2 basins - no squabbling! It was lovely to open the shutters in the morning and see the mist rolling from the mountains, and hear the bells from the church at the end of the road. Domaso was only a couple of minutes walking through the narrow cobbled streets, so if we needed any emergency foodstuffs, it was right there. The supermarket was only a kilometre away, and pretty well stocked, (especially the deli counter) so although we had rented a car, it was close enough not to have to be an excursion. Our only gripe would be that there were no English speaking channels on TV except for Sky News, but to be honest, when we were in that location, we didn't really bother with TV anyway as the surrounds were so glorious. We had a fantastic time and Nelly was the ideal base. We'd recommend it to anyone.

Hope you can use my "review" Giovanni, and hope it brings you lots of new business.

All the very best to you and your family.

Steph and Tim - Great Britain - 2002

Isabella and Giovanni

thank you so much for the enjoyable time we've had at Villa Annamaria. We didn't know that our hosts were such a public and popular part of Domaso life when we arrived, however, it's been only our benefit! People in Domaso ask wherewe are staying and when we reply "Villa Annamaria" or "Giovanni & Isabella's" we are instantly enjoying their grand reception. Last nite, as we sat in the cafè, with our complimentary bottle of champagne, we guessed at how soon we will return to your Villa and Domaso. Don't be surprised if our friends arrive first. Villa Annamaria will be known very soon to all our friends, some of them agile windsurfers!!.

Thank you, so much, for your hospitality and sharing these beautiful surroundings, the Villa and Domaso!! Three cheers!!

Shannon, Steve, Johnny and Gage - S.Francisco - CA - 2002

Dear Giovanni,

Just a short note to let you know we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Italy - in large part due to the charming place you have.

With best wishes,

Vishnu and Nirmala - Hong Kong - 2002

Giovanni,

Gail, Bill, Jo and I just wanted to tell you again what a wonderful time we had staying with you. The apartment is beautiful, as are the location and the owners! We'll definitely recommend you and Domaso to any friends who are thinking of a trip to Lake Como.

Fred R. - Metuchen - N.J. - 2002

Dear Giovanni;Its been a couple of weeks since we arrived home and I am just getting back into the swing of things. My friends and I had a great time in Domaso and the surrounding area. The scenery is just breathtaking there. We all wanted to thank you so much for everything again. We can not stop bragging about how beautiful our Italian Villa was. I have already recommended it to some aquaintances interested in travelling to that area. Guess what ,? we were going to stay in Austria on Easter Sunday night but since we were on one of their highways and we were pulled over and made to pay 145.00 euro, we decide not to. WE spent the evening in a very quaint chalet guest haus in Garmish, Germany. so we did not get so lucky on the way home with them. Nevertheless, we had a great vacation. Thank you again and I wish you and you family well!!!!

JeannieMarieO. - Long Island - NY - 2002