Saturday, 2nd July

The Plan

15:08 Train to Desenzano arrives @ 17:06
    We stay at Hotel Desenzano until Sat. 9th July
        Email: gruppi@easylake.it
        Tel: +39 030 914 1414

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The News

The bed was really comfortable and we had a choice of pillows. However, the shower head kept tipping over which meant being quite athletic when getting the soap off.  But that was just warm-up callisthenics.

The buffet breakfast was the best we've seen anywhere, ever.  There was a large selection of types of bread, pastries, fruit and meats. But there was also bacon and eggs as well as hazelnuts in dark chocolate.  The Italians are so civilised.

Having fuelled up by hoovering up the buffet, it was off for a walk around Turin.  The shops were still shut when we set off at 9am, but there were views in every direction.

We are creatures of habit - so we took an open-top bus tour of the city to get our bearings.  It was €23 each for a one-day jump-on/jump-off ticket for tours A and B ... and it was worth every cent.  Turin has lots to see.  We now have ideas for where to go when we are coming back.

The need for suitcases made us look in all the shops (Jan hated that!).  Having found some, we were then on the hunt for the next most important thing - ice cream.  We found a little cafe in the piazza in which some of The Italian Job was filmed.

By now it was starting to heat up.  28°C was showing, but my stylish straw hat (not the view of the management, i.e. Jan) was keeping the sun off my thinning head.

It was a pleasant stroll down the piazza from the cafe to the bridge where they filmed the scenes where the Minis drive across the weir and down the steps of the church where the wedding was taking place.  And there were weddings taking place whilst Jan paused for photos!

We then strolled back through the shopping streets to our hotel.  The heat and the cases made the journey back seem twice as long, so we had done our 10,000 steps for the day by the time we got back.

Our first job was to repack our cases so that we could just wheelie our luggage along instead of carrying it.  We just did that in time.  Papa Duck marshalled us ducklings for the short walk to the station, but we did have to cross a busy main road.  We then found that we had 3/4 of an hour to wait for the train!  So we went and found some seats with another very nice couple who had been sent to sit down, got some drinks and had a nice chat.  Then, we noticed that the party had gone!  Papa Duck had left us four ducklings behind.

Fortunately, Jan had remembered that our train was going to Venice, so we found the train, found the carriage and got on in plenty of time.  Papa Duck said that he was just coming to find us, but ...

He wasn't at all apologetic.  He had looked up Jan on Facebook and found a link to me and found that I taught computing at the University of Greenwich.  So then we got a monologue on the shortcomings of UoG because his daughter had not enjoyed her degree.  She had no in-person classes for the final two years of her degree due to COVID.

The journey was only two hours and passed rather quickly.  The first part was quite flat, but we were soon into the Alps.  Milan appeared and went and then it became hectic because we were told we had to be ready to get off quickly because the train only stopped for a short while in Desenzano.  So, like good ducklings, we got in line with our cases and scampered onto the platform as soon as the train stopped.

There seemed to be quite a lot of stairs down and several nice people offered to help with the cases, but those became the handrail for my other side.  But, once down, it was only a minute of waddling to our hotel in the 32°C heat.

Checking in was, as usual, in surname order.  We'll be last every time, but there are worse things that can happen.  Our room is not as nice as in the previous hotel, but the others say that theirs is not as well-appointed as ours.  The bed is comfy and the bathroom has lots of space.  The shower is quite small so you have to turn the water off to soap yourself.

The suitcases we had sent ahead from London were already in our rooms.  There were complimentary drinks waiting for us after we had unpacked before a nice evening meal.  Papa Duck gave us all menus for the following evening so that we could choose what we wanted in advance.

Then it was off to sleep.  Night, night Desenzano.