Garda, Lake Garda, and Homeward

Monday 5 July 2003. We are on the last leg of our last look at Lake Garda on the last day of our holiday. Let's hope it lasts...

Hey up... At the time of Napoleon the French armies gained control of much of northern Italy. Having gotten back on board the Leger coach this is what we see as we approach the town of Garda. The blighters are still here! So, singing a well-chosen Abba song we wave gaily as we pass...

Garda has a curved bay facing onto the lake and is altogether another reason why we don't want to go home again so soon. "Do you know how much rain we get in our Lake District?" I demanded of a French dragoon, casually swatting his sabre aside. His eyes crossed. It wasn't his sabre...

We followed the curve of the lakeside into town. Bars and gelateria all over the place. An excellent last stopping point for the holiday.

And in the town, more pavement cafes and bars. There was a parish church dating back to the 6th-7th centuries, though it was rebuilt from 1530. Unfortunately the money ran out and the church didn't get finished until 1764. We deferred a visit for a chance of a sit down with a glass of Aperol...

Then it was back on the coach and the return to Riva del Garda, passing through more of the road tunnels through the cliffs as we approached Torbole. I think I mentioned that a few years later the tunnels would be used for a car chase scene in the 2006 Bond film Casino Royale. Somewhere along this bit an Aston Martin car had to be fished out of the lake with a crane after a stunt driver had a slight mishap...

We got off the coach in Riva and then had a surprise as a bunch of determined chaps came round the corner, legging it for all they were worth. Were they still after Bond? No, he wouldn't be here for another two years, it was a running race. We soon noticed TV cameras all over the town.

Not long afterwards the runners had spaced themselves out nicely as the fit ones pulled away and the less fit ones puffed and panted behind. I puffed and panted from behind a nice ornamental glass dish with ice cream, pineapple, strawberries and fresh cream... It was hard going...

Tuesday 6 July 2003. We were picked up at Riva and driven to Verona airport for our flight back home to Manchester. I think I'm right in saying this was the first time we had boarded a plane the old-fashioned way, by walking out onto the tarmac to climb the steps instead of walking along an air corrider to step onto the aeroplane on the level.

Our flight would take us up over the Dolomites and the Alps which, it must be said, is better than flying into the side of them. Join us on another holiday soon!

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index

Sirmione on Lake Garda

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!"

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index

Lake Garda from Riva to Gardone

Monday 5 July 2003. Our last full day in Italy dawned with the prospect of a trip around Lake Garda.

Early morning in Riva del Garda and already the sun was up, out, and shouting for us to come and get ourselves burnt to a crisp!

The ferry boats had yet to start, although most of our ride around the lake today would be on the coach. Lake Garda is 30 miles long. To take one of the slow ferries down to the bottom of the lake and back is an all day adventure with not much chance of getting off at all. The ferries criss-cross the lake from side to side in a zig-zag and apart from a couple of hydrofoils are not the quickest things on the water. Neither are some of them particularly well-furnished for comfort. So it would be a full day of breathing in diesel fumes on an open deck to do this by boat.

So we pile onto the coach and find that Christina and her party are already onboard with us. Christina, you may remember, was our Leger guide from a trip to Amsterdam a couple of years previously. I don't know whether there were no "characters" in her party, but anyway she came to sit with us most of the time as our own guide was doing most of the spiel on the coach's microphone. At the northern end of the lake a lot of the road is burrowed into the cliff face with windows opening to the view. They are featured in the second of Daniel Craig's James Bond films: A Quantum of Solace. Here we are overlooking Limone.

This is Gardone. This far down the lake (about two thirds of the way from top to bottom) the mountains have been tamed and are rolling hills of green grass or tree covering rather than sheer walls of rock.

Gardone, also called Gardone Riviera, is aimed well and truly at the tourist. There was a beautiful aspect of the lake from a well kept promenade that had plenty of colour from flower beds and more importantly lots of benches to sit upon.

There was the smallest of harbours, scarce the width of two boats with a harbour wall to protect the boats just in case of a storm out on the water. Poles painted in blue and white barbers' stripe spirals provided mooring points and the sleek motor boat at the entrance to the harbour was, though we didn't realise it at the time, waiting for us!

Mid morning drinkies. The temps are up in the high 30s. Fran opts for the delicious latte machiatto but I've gone for an ice cold cola.

Whilst we were sat having the drinks I sketched the curve of the coast - well, lakeside but it seemed like a coast! Christina said "I didn't know you were an artist!" but I said "Well you took us through the Red Light District too fast... "

Then it was time to get on the boat. We were heading for Sirmione at the southern end of the lake. We sat at the front of the boat with Christina who had made our Amsterdam trip so much fun.

The boat took us close up to one of Garda's islands where the millionaires have their playground. If I were ever to become a millionaire (not likely so please don't hold your breath...) this is definitely a place where I would like one of my mansions to be...

We reach Sirmione and will save the sights of that town for the next article!

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index

The Dolomite Pass Pordoi

Saturday 3 July 2003. We look back on an excursion again today, heading back into and up the Dolomite mountas via the Pass Pordoi.

Hairpin bends and spectacular views were the order of the day.

There was a familiar voice as another Leger party got on the coach. I turned to see Christina who had been our guide in Amsterdam! "I take you round the red light district here?" she shouted down the length of a suddenly stunned silent coach...

Ever wondered what the Winter Olympics ski jumps look like in summer? Scary. They look scary!

We reached the Pordoi Pass. This reaches an altitude of 2,239 metres (7,346 ft) and we started climbing 9.4 kilometres (5.84 miles) ago with an average gradient of 6.8% - glad I wasn't travelling by pushbike... Helena, our guide for the day, was soon booking tickets for us all to go up the Sass Pordoi.

That wasn't a spelling mistake. Sass Pordoi is a mountain at 2,952 m (9,685 ft), whose summit can be reached by funicular from Pordoi Pass. These were large cable cars, not the small ones. They held a fair amount of people so once we had our tickets it didn't take long before we were heading skywards!

They set off climbing at quite a steep angle too. We were amongst the last people on, so had a good view looking downwards. I've never been particularly bothered by heights providing I'm not in the process of falling from them, but not everyone on the coach felt able to attempt the trip up the mountain.

It was a long way up even on the cable car. We felt our ears pop a couple of times as we ascended and the air got thinner.

At the top of the mountain there were a couple of gullies and the cable car made use of them, passing between walls of rock on three sides as it neared the top station.

As we reached the summit and got out to walk atop the plateau of the mountain top we could see that the cable car station actually overhung the edge.

Looking back down the way we came up we could see only a cluster of buildings without being able to make out much detail. The sun's rays lit up the tops of surrounding mountains and the path of the valleys far below.

Up here on the rock plateau it was decidedly chilly. Admittedly I was only wearing a t-shirt... My arm started to tingle with cold. When I looked, tiny ice crystals or snow flakes were landing on me. Time to go back down!

As we waited for the cable car it started to snow a bit harder and we crammed into the first available car shivering and clapping our arms around ourselves trying get warm again.

We were all on the coach again apart from a Chinese mother and daughter who had gone wandering around independently instead of going up the cable car. They turned up 20 minutes late and tried to blame it on Helena telling her that she had told them the wrong time - even though the rest of us had obviously gotten there on time. Helena was having none of it. "Don't argue with Mama!" she said in a voice that brought on a sudden storm complete with thunder and lightning...

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index

Moonlight Cruise to Limone

Wednesday 30 June 2003. We are on the fifth article already of this holiday series about our trip to Lake Garda and we are still on the first day!.

We had joined a Leger group, though we had flown out from the UK to Verona instead of going all the way by coach. Tonight after our evening meal we were going to have a moonlight cruise on the lake. The moon wasn't quite out yet but it would be later...

Limone is the first ferry stop south of Riva, although many ferries call at Torbole first on the opposite top corner of the lake. We were not on one of the usual ferries this night though. We are on a fast boat - Speedy 1. Speedy 2 is picking up another Leger group from somewhere... Between Riva and Limone is this small inlet where a river flows down from the mountains into the lake. When I say "down" I mean it falls in a dirty great waterfall not far into the inlet. However it is so dark in there that you are lucky to see it. So I've brightened up the bit with the waterfall in it on this photo. Even so I wouldn't blame you for not being able to recognise it as such...

Limone sul Garda is half built at the bottom of the cliff face and half excavated out of it! Its name comes from the crops of lemons that are grown and harvested during the summer months. There is a summer population of 10,000. In winter with no visitors and very few lemons, this dwindles to just one thousand.

We landed and are to have a stop off here for an hour or so. A chance to explore and also a chance for it to go dark and for the moon to come out! Speedy 2 arrived so then there were two groups of us frantically trying to find our guides and/or members of our own party...

Half of them seemed to have wandered off anyway and either some of them had become very fluent in Italian and German or some residents and random tourists had intermingled anyway. Time to shrug shoulders and find our own way about! No sooner were the shoulders shrugged than a lost French couple interrupted us to see if we knew where they were meant to be... I pointed helpfully to the opposite side of the lake.

This was the excavated bit. A street of shops had been hewed out of the rock at the foot of the cliffs. This place had a rather weighty ceiling and we walked quickly just in case...

There was of course, a fair amount of climbing to do also! We had been told there was a church and for some reason decided to find it.

In any case I wanted to climb up a little in order to get some photos of the lake and lights of its towns from a position slightly less populated by other people taller than me!

We found the church and began to regret walking up the hill as it turned out to be decidedly uninteresting and closed. The locals would be very unlucky if a horde of vampires suddenly descended... Are vampires repelled by dress shops? Or is it just me...?

We climbed as high as we felt we had time for and lo and behold here is our guide. She had charged off up the hill to get away from the more stupid half of Speedy 1's passengers who, no matter how many times she had told them before landing, followed her to ask "What time do we have to be back at the boat and where is it?" When no stupid questions came from us she was quite happy to take our photo!

And before long it was time to find our boat again. There were now two of them of course and Speedy 2 looked identical to ours. My trained eye however spotted the name Speedy 1 painted in large letters on the bow of the boat and we climbed up to the open top deck to get to know a few of our fellow passengers a bit better.

There was Kell and his wife Denise who were teaching in England for a year on an elongated stay away from their home in New Zealand and a long-haired genial chap called Andy, a few years older than us with his wife Margaret. He somehow got us into a conversation about the 1950s/60s comedian Freddie Frinton who I just about remembered from childhood. Freddie's act saw him playing a most convincing and hilarious drunk on-stage and he had a prop cigarette which was broken in the middle so that it dangled downwards and swung about from his mouth as he talked.

It was by now pitch dark on the lake and at the front of an open deck on a speedboat, we were just a tad from freezing to death. So by the time we were back at Riva it was with a bit of relief that we got back onto terra firma and headed for the hotel.

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index