Yesterday I mentioned the high waters. Today the lake overflowed. From our room at 3:00 pm this was the scene

At 6 pm it looked like this and we can see the water rushing in.

We understand there have been flash floods, landslides and evacuations in some areas around the lake.

The square shown above has flooded before. Turns out that in the late 1800s the square was the Como harbour. So I guess it is not surprising it floods regularly. While we have not experienced rain, it did rain last night and reports are that at one point there was over a thousand cubic meters of water entering the lake every second. Apparently there was torrential rain and huge hail falling in the north during the night, with accumulations of hail that people were shoveling.

I was worried before we came about the forecast for temperatures in the low 30sC and rain. Now they are predicting temperatures of 42C for tomorrow. Up to now it has been perfect weather. Well we will see. With roads closed around the lake just as well we didn’t rent a car!

Earlier in the day we took the funicular up to see the views. Here are some pictures looking down at Como

There was too much haze to see the alps today. The top of the funicular was at 710 meters.

In the afternoon we went into the cathedral – it was built between 1396 and the mid 1700s with different areas added over the years. Inside there was a rose window (Gary says my pictures of the windows are washed out)

There were many beautiful tapestries here are a couple

The ceiling was very colourful

Some of the other art work

The dome from inside

Other areas

Meanwhile the water keeps rising and by 10:30 there are ducks swimming and swans sleeping in the square as workers put up more board walks