Thursday, 7th July

The Plan

No scheduled activities.

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The News

They were still sweeping up after the storm the night before as we got down to breakfast.  There was a little group of six of us who were early risers and could enjoy whatever we wanted from the excellent breakfast bar.  You had the choice of cooked breakfast food, pastries, fruit, cereals, etc. ... and you could go back as often as you wanted ... and I did.  One hopes that the breakfast bar was replenished once I had left.

This should have been a nice quiet day.  Our plan was to get a day pass for the lower part of Lake Garda (19€ each with a wrinkly pass or 23€ each if you are a youngster), go to Garda then back to Bardolino and finish up in Lazise.  However, my hay fever really kicked in.  I'd been taking hay fever tablets for a few days but they seemed less effective today.  One of the many nice people on the tour had some Claratyn and that made things better.

We got off in Garda which has changed a lot since we were last there about 25 years ago.  We had to navigate via the back streets because the harbour front had changed such a lot.

Apologies, but I'm now going "back-story" again ... and again.  The first time we arrived in Garda, probably in the early 1990s, we thought we would have ice cream so we sat at a table and the waiter gave us a menu.  The strawberry cup looked nice, but when it arrived it was twice the size shown on the menu and tasted far better than we expected.  It is not often that what you see on the menu is not as nice as what you get ... but they managed it.

So we went back again and got a refill ...

And then there was the restaurant we called "Maxi Portions".  It was a vine-covered, multi-level restaurant with superb waiters.  Its actual name was Pinci but the menu had a section labelled Maxi Portions - and they were.  Meals such as Spaghetti Carbonara and Spaghetti Bolonaise came in washing-up bowl-sized tureens filled to the brim.  Unfortunately, this restaurant seems to have slipped since we were there so we made do with just the ice cream.

I began to feel increasingly muzzy as we wandered around, so we skipped Bardolino and took the boat to Lazise.  We had never been there before which was a shame because it was really pretty.  The streets are wide and it appeared far less crowded than Garda or Bardolino.  It is also quite flat which was nice.  Needless to say, it had lots of cafes and ice cream parlours - such a shame.  They also had an excellent leather goods store, so I now have a new wallet.

The boat ride back to Desenzano was nice, but the clouds were building up.  The temperature cooled a bit but the humidity rose.  We, therefore, decided to eat at the restaurant just opposite the ferry jetty.   Walking far was not a good option.  

We had a passable half a rotisserie chicken each and the price was passable too.  And then there was a shower, so the restaurant moved the tables in under the large umbrellas.  They were starting to the tables back out again as we left.

The rain started again as we walked up the hill.  Ah, another shower, we thought.  But we were wrong - we were soaked by the time we got to the hotel.  There was another thunderstorm that night.  We could see and hear it, but we escaped the deluge this time.