The Coastal Path Back to Riva

Wednesday 30 June 2003. It was our first day on holiday at Lake Garda and so far we had walked from Riva where we were staying, along to Torbole and were now heading back.

The shingle beaches were by then full of people. Not all the young ladies were as fully dressed as this, but I baulk at pointing cameras deliberately at topless sunbathers. Not so much the Italian older males though, who were wandering up and down with mini video cameras held high above their heads, pointing at any likely looking opportunity. Not even trying to be furtive about it. Either they live sad lonely lives or they... no, they must lead sad lonely lives...

We came to the bridge over the Fiume Sarca, the only river flowing into the lake on its northern edge.

Looking north from the side of the bridge, the river had flowed down from the mountains and was quite fast-flowing.

Here and there were small inlets where boats for hire could be taken out onto the lake. Some boats were brought by their owners. This was a fairly large catamaran, resting on the grass whilst the owner was presumably looking for somewhere to park his car. This end of Lake Garda is very popular with German tourists who live close enough to treat it as a day out.

Then we came to a place where the cliffs fell steeply into the lake and the path petered out, forcing us onto the narrow pavements at the side of a very fast road. Well, the drivers were very fast - heck even the cyclists were taking no prisoners...

The road is called the Via Gardesana which I took to translate as the Garden Road - though Google Translate seems to translate it into English as "Via Gardesana"... Not a lot of help! Well I'm sticking to my version unless there are any fully fledged Italian speakers out there to contradict me?

There's only the one river flowing into the lake from the north, but the Torrente Albola is a stream that trundled its way under our path.

We were closer to Riva now than Torbole and were starting to fancy (if I can use such a term for crawling on hands and knees with tongues lolling out) a nice glass of something.

We stood up long enough to take a photo by propping the camera on top of a litter bin and setting the self-timer (gas mark 4 for 1/250 seconds).

No ferries stopped off at this point so I presumed this one was either out of use or had been booked for a private party.

Just a bit further on was a lakeside cafe. That'll do nicely!

The birds were really tame. They would hop onto the tables and take a crumb from your fingers. Sudden movements soon made them flutter away in alarm though.

We had good seats right on the edge of the lake so I got out the sketch pad to while away half an hour whilst my limonata got warm...

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index