La Rocca, Riva del Garda's Medieval Castle

Wednesday 30 June 2003. After our jaunt to Torbole, we arrived back at Riva at the top end of Italy's Lake Garda, with sore feet and a desire to sit for a bit and do nothing much. The soreness in the feet has since worn off, but the desire to sit and do nothing has strangely remained...

So we found an empty bench on the corner of La Rocca, Riva's medieval castle and fortress.

It has a history going back to the year 1124 CE when the citizens of Riva were granted the right to build a castle here. Since then it was done up somewhat in the 1500s as a suitable lodging place for any passing Prince Bishops who may have wanted to spend a night or couple of months and in the mid 1800s was totally rearranged inside to turn it into a barracks for the Austro-Hungarian armies.

It is small, but formidable and even moated all the way around. Once the armies had done with it in more recent times it had some more restorative work done, and some of its early medieval structures were found and in 2003 it housed and still houses a museum.

I came over all arty and got the pad and pencil out for half an hour's scribbling. As we sat on a bench to sketch it we listened to a concert of film music coming from inside. If you look in any brochure for Lake Garda you will find a photograph from this viewpoint. It is the one crucial image - like a photograph of Blackpool Tower is crucial to any brochure of Blackpool.

We wern't sure whether it was a free concert or not so we went to have a look. Inside we heard a warning twittering and looked up to see some of the small birds who had shared our food in the cafe had built a nest under the archway. It didn't look as though we could get in!

Looking down the western arm of the moat towards the 30-mile length of Lake Garda with the mountains on the eastern side visible. As Riva sits between mountains on both sides the light goes quickly and early.

We still had a couple of hours of daylight left though and at a lakeside cafe we got re-acquainted with a latte machiatto each - warm milk with a shot of espresso poured in. This was to become our favourite Italian luxury!

Then Miss Franny seemed to want to go window shopping for some reason. She found a Murano glassware shop and went all misty-eyed and wistful. "We have a day at Venice coming up during the week," I said hastily. A few day's reprieve for the wallet then... That night after our evening meal at the hotel we and our fellow travellers on the Leger tour would be going on a speedboat trip after dark on the lake. We were going to call at the first town to the south on the banks of the lake: Limone.

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index