Monday 5 July 2003. We were spending our last full day in Italy around Lake Garda itself.
Having started in Riva at the far northen end of the lake, we had travelled by coach to Gardone, two-thirds of the way down and then by fast boat to Sirmione where we found ourselves at the start of this article written twenty and a half years later... The well in the photo was our group meeting point for later on.
We had an hour or so to explore the town - let's go!
Sirmione is one of the most popular spots on Lake Garda. It sits quite strangely on the end of a very thin promontory that sticks out into the lake for 3.3 km (2.1 miles) from halfway along the southern edge of the lake. Unlike the northern edge which is just 3 km (2 miles) from one side to the other, the southern bank of the lake is 18 km (11 miles) across.
The town itself is large enough to walk round and enjoy the shops and cafes and of course the fabulous Italian gelateri ice creams. It enjoys a well laid out street system and weather that allows for a generous riot of colour from window boxes, flower beds and large amounts of purple bougainvillea growing on the walls of houses and shops.
Sirmione also has beaches, something denied to the more northern of Lake Garda's towns where the mountainsides drop steeply in cliff faces into the lake.
Dominating the town is the Scaligeri castle. Built from 1277 CE onwards on the very edge of the lake it was meant to protect the harbour where the Scaliger fleet was based. It has the swallowtail merlons that we saw in Verona on the walls.
The castle is surrounded by a moat that on one side is formed by the lake itself.
Trying to storm this castle would involve a waterborne invasion, or an awkward half climb, half tightrope walk from the harbour wall. Or require an army of very good jumpers...
Legitimate access was by drawbridges. One of these has since been replaced with a load-bearing stone bridge,
To my inexpert eye it looks like the two beams would swing down from an upright position with the castle end of the drawbridge permenantly attached in place and the land side swinging downwards until the far end rested on the opposite approach road.
No such problems for visitors in 2003. Top right is a bell tower rising high above the castle. Presumably this would ring out if anything alarming was spotted approaching either from the lake or up the promontory.
Nothing alarming about this approaching loveliness... As James Bond might have said (in The Spy Who Loved Me about someone I've counted as a friend now for 26 years), "What a beautiful craft ... such sleek lines!"
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