Italy – summer 2007

After a leisurely breakfast, we had a read for a bit. My nice lady from Eurocamp came over, and gave us a tourist booklet about this particular area of Garda, and a booklet about boat trips. I was starting to feel guilty about leaving after only a day – she thought we were there for a week or something.

At around 9.30, we snuck out of the campsite and travelled the 6km to the Eden along the twisty Garda roads. When we got there, they let us in to save blocking the road outside, and our pitch was free, so we pitched up, and got everything set up – van levelled, hookup hooked up, windows and vents open, flyscreens up, chairs and table and groundsheet out and unpacked, awning out.

Initial impressions of the site were good. It was clean, the pitches were a reasonable size – although the ground sloped sharply, all pitches were terraced, and reasonably level. Although it’s another quite expensive site (€36 a night), it was clean and well-kept, with a good-sized pool with plenty of available sun loungers, shop, restaurant, and WiFi! More on that later.

We met Ed and Julia, our friends from back home who have a static caravan here, and shared water and beer with them.

Went up to town. New bar. No cash from machine. Ed with invite & ended up sharing a bottle of red wine. Pasta (ages to cook) for dinner. Drinks with them.

Booked 4 more days. Boat trip across bay to Salo. Wander around shops. Belt and Stella Artois hat for me, bikini for Annie. Back on boat with lovely grissini and rolls for lunch. Us to bar for internet, and I stayed. Annie made lunch. Siesta. Tried out pool with silly hats. Dinner of barbecued veg.

Happy birthday, Annie!

Tea and internet in bed. Annie email from Australia and replied from bed in Italy. Pool for an hour or so. Up to town for lunch in new bar. Shopping in local shops for food & drink. Siesta. Ed and Julia round for drinks.

2.00am, and woken by huge thunderstorm, with continuous lightning. Our awning began to suffer with a huge weight of water, so we braved the elements and lowered the legs so all the water poured out, and regained its proper shape. An hour later, there was a small crack, and the awning on a German camper opposite (which was the same Fiamma one as ours, and showed evidence of previous storm damage) was no longer standing.

3.30am, and I made a cup of tea since we weren’t able to get back to sleep, and got out the laptop (as you do).

4.00am, and at last the rain eased off, and the thunder seemed to drift away, although the sky was still occasionally lit by flashes of lightning.

4.04am, and the rain started again.

Eventually, we got back to sleep, and woke up ay around 8am, to a cloudy and overcast day.

· Don’t know what we did for the rest of the day, apart from walking into San Felice del Bonaco, to get a refill for our CampingGaz stove. And popped into the Furious Bar on the way back, and had a number of drinks. Brought nibbles, and then brought more because they remembered Annie was vegetarian. We left stuffed, and unable to have the planned barbecue. Never mind. Que sera sera, and all that.

Up at the normal time, despite having to tell a couple of Dutch guys at 4am that their laughing and joking at high volume wasn’t really acceptable. They were quiet afterwards.

We caught the 9:55 ferry across to Salo and, pausing only to pick up a variety of pastries at the baker’s, walked to the market.

This is a huge market, and we spent a couple of hours walking around it. However, the only thing we bought was a bag of freshly-fried fish (a mixture of whitebait, scampi and calamari). I wasn’t partial to the whitebait, but the scampi was beautiful, with a taste of garlic, and the calamari were done in a sweet batter.

Walking back to the ferry, Annie bought a hat, and we stopped off at a bar, where I had a coffee, and Annie had a pirlot. Back at Portese, we paused briefly at a bar by the marina, and then wandered back to the campsite, where we adjourned to the bar (purely to get an internet signal, officer), and then back to the van for our siesta. Bars are nice in Italy. And we are on holiday.

In the evening, we went out with Ed and Julia to a agritourismo, which is a sort of sponsored restaurant in the country, specialising in home produce. This one was about 15 minutes (by car) up the hill on our side of the lake, and it was beautiful, and the food was excellent, and reasonably-priced. We had drinks at Ed and Julia’s before bed at around midnight.

Up earlyish, although there was no real need, and after showers and morning ablutions, it was out on the bikes for a little ride. Only, of course, anywhere from lake level has got to be up, and the steep hill into Portese was a shock to the system. Ten minutes in, and Annie’s bike showed signs of having a puncture in the rear tyre, so she had to return to camp, and I bravely sweated on. I rode to the Baie de Vento, where you can see the island of Garda, and took some piccies. I then rode on a bit further, and realised that flat roads aren’t flat, and my route was just a succession of ups and downs, so I headed back to Portese, and the Furious Café, where a coffee rejuvenated me.

Cycling a bit further, I noticed the back door to the campsite was open, so I weaved my way through the static caravans and mobile homes from various holiday companies.

Annie had gone to the pool, so I joined her, and we then came back for a spot of lunch.

After lunch was dossy, and we both read.

We went to the beach, and saw Ed and Julia again, and they asked us if we would be interested in trying a restaurant they’d just heard of, over the other side of the bay and up in the hills for our anniversary dinner. We thought about it for several nanoseconds, and said we would. So that’s tomorrow’s meal sorted.
Annie suggested that 5 days getting to Calais was maybe too long and could we stay here for two more nights. I went down to Reception and duly booked it, that’s twice we’ve extended the stay.

For our own dinner, we had grilled courgettes on the barbecue, and I had some sausages which we did afterwards. We had a nice evening.

Happy anniversary to us! 13 years!

I was up at 6 and replied to some work e-mails and went down to get breakfast at 8’ish. We had intended to go to Desenzano today but we mucked up the boat timetable so decided that it’ll keep for another day. I stayed at the van and dossed and Annie went to the pool for a swim and a sunbathe.

For lunch, we had some fruit, bought from the visiting fruit and veg van the day before. After lunch, we tried to pre-book our place for next year, only to find that the particular pitch we wanted (with electric hookup and a sink on the pitch) had already been pre-booked by the present incumbents. We obviously needed to think again, so we investigated some more pitches, and found one which was large, no trees obscuring the main part, had hookup and a sink, and perhaps most important of all, had a solid 2 lights on the WiFi sniffer, whereas our current pitch had either one light or no lights. We booked it for four weeks next summer, and paid our deposit.

We went up the campsite restaurant, but were studiously ignored by the waiting staff, so we upped and went on a little walking tour of the campsite. We met Ed and Julia at around 7pm, and Julia drove us to a restaurant up in the hills behind Salo, where we had a really lovely meal, surrounded by Italians (no burgers and chips here).

Julia very skilfully drove us back down the windy hillside road, and we had a late-night drink outside our van, before turning in at around midnight – late for us.

Having checked the timetables carefully, we breakfasted and presented ourselves at the ferry port at the right time for the fast boat to Desenzano. On the walk down to the ticket office, I had noticed that the surface of the lake was a bit ‘choppy’. This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that the early boat was the fast catamaran, and knowing Annie wasn’t the best traveller in ‘lively’ conditions, I hoped things would be OK.

As we waited by the jetty, she noticed the waves crashing onto the rocks underneath. “There must have been a boat pass by to cause these waves.” I nodded, thoughfully.

The catamaran arrived, and we took our seats. After edging away from the harbour, the engines increased in speed and power, and as we started to hit some of the waves, I felt Annie’s hand tighten around mine.

After around 15 minutes of forcing our way out into the major part of the lake, the boat turned south, and the frenzy of thumping and smashing diminished, and I regained some of the feeling in my hand again.

The southern parts of Lake Garda seemed to show more signs of recent building, which was probably more to do with the lakeside land being flatter than around Portese. We preferred ‘our’ part, with it’s interesting hills and mountains, and perhaps a more ‘traditional’, undeveloped feel about it.

Tuesday is market day in Desenzano. Many of the same traders that we saw in Salo were also here in Desenzano, and we assumed they travelled around the lake, from market to market.

Space on the seafront at Desenzano is limited, and walking through the market was a cramped and jostling affair. Being ever so slightly paranoid, I kept my hand firmly on our money wallet, until we could find a clearer space. We couldn’t resist the fried fish van again, although I think it was a different vendor, since the prawns didn’t have the lovely garlic flavour from the other day, and the calamari were a bit tougher.

Passing a bancomat (cash machine) we tried our luck.

Ever since the Sunday night, when we phoned our bank to allow us access to our money, we’ve had varied results with our attempts at cash withdrawal. Sometimes we get a curt “no can do” message, and sometimes an interesting “we cannot fulfil your direction because there is no link” message. We now try to top up with cash (our current campsite, and others, do not accept credit cards – only cash will do) whenever we can.

The first machine asked us if we wanted Eurocheques, or our card returned. Not knowing what a Eurocheque was, and doubting that anyone other than a bank would know what to do with it, we requested our card.

The next machine gave us the aforementioned “link” message, which was, to be honest, a new one on us. We got our card back.

Wandering around, behind the market stalls looking for banks and cash machines, we diverted into a backwater of the bustling torrent of retail madness of the market, we came across the post office, with a cash machine. We waited patiently while several people, all holding cigarettes in their hands as they pressed buttons and entered PINs, did their business. Eventually it was our turn, and we waited while the machine checked the other cashpoints in the town to see if we’d had the requisite number of failures this morning, and then condescended to count out a few bills.

Unburdened by feelings of insecurity lack of cash in Italy gives us, we headed off for the nearest bar, and found a lovely, quiet place, serving Stella Artois for me and pirlots for Annie.

A pleasant hour or so passed, our reading interrupted by the barman returning with new drinks, and it started to get a bit close to ‘boat home’ time. These ferry boats run fairly infrequently, and we didn’t want to miss our ride home.

We headed back for the lakefront, and the ferry terminal, and took up position to watch the market traders packing up. They take their business very seriously, and the mostly new-ish vans are custom-designed to take all their stock and tables and benches and tills. Most fascinating was the overhead awnings, which are mounted on the roofs of the vans, and spread out like butterfly wings to cover their area. Either a push button control console in the cab, or a remote control, causes these amazing mechanical devices to fold back on themselves, and for all of their mechanism to be contained neatly within a rectangular metal box mounted on the roof of the van.

The slow, and blissfully calm, boat ride back gave both Annie and I the opportunity of giving our eyes a well-earned rest from the harsh sunlight streaming off the millpond surface of the lake.

In the evening, Ed and Julia popped round to suggest having a fish barbecue tomorrow evening. We in turn suggested they sit down and have a drink, and we chatted under the awning until the campsite was quiet.

Today, we are to take Ed and Julia for a drink at Ed’s favourite bar, across the lake at Salo. The weather was unkind, and the sky was overcast, and our friends kindly offered to drive us the 4km round the lake to our lunchtime venue. We were happy to comply.

It rained on and off as we walked along the promenade at Salo, and we found a table at the bar, and we all ordered pirlots. As is the custom, the barman brought some nibbles with the drinks, and we enjoyed small pizza-like vol-au-vents, crisps, tortilla chips, olives, gherkins, and capers. Another round of drinks bought another plateful, and we feasted as we watched the clearing skies across the lake.

We stopped off at the supermarket (called the Two Pines) on the way back to the campsite, and loaded up with fish, salad and wine for the barbecue later.

Back to the van, and more reading until it’s time for dinner.

Ed and Julia had prepared a lovely dinner, and the barbecue was lit and ready for cooking. We started with grissini, with proscuittio and reggiano, then had barbecued tiger prawns with lemon, and finished with lake fish with chips and salad. It was all very lovely.

When we got back to the van and retired for the night, I noticed it seemed very dark. I then realised that the power light for the fridge was off, and we’d lost the power from the mains hookup. Rather than venture out in the rain, I switched it over to gas, and planned to investigate in the morning.

At some time in the night, I was woken by the igniter on the fridge attempting to light a non-existant gas supply. The gas bottle, than had been producing characteristic smellier-than-normal gas for a while as an indicator that it was running out had actually run out.

Rather than crash about changing the cylinder, I ventured out the back of the van with my trusty little flashlight, and opened up the hookup cabinet. The trip on our supply had dropped out for some unknown reason. I was able to reset it without doing anything else, and returned to the relative warmth and dryness of the van, switched the fridge back over to mains supply, and went back to bed.

During the night, we had some more thunder and lightning with the rain, although not as bad as the other night. A couple of times I checked that the awning was secure, and the water was running happily off it and not forming an enormous lake in the centre as it did before.

In the morning, I took advantage of a short break in the rain to empty things that needed emptying, and changed over the gas bottle. No more smelly gas for a while.

Over the morning, the weather brightened up, and I filled the water tank, removed the silver screen, and washed down the front of the van. We then went the whole hog, and retracted the awning, and put the chairs and table away. Ed had popped over to say they were going to try to find the restaurant in the hills again, and would we like to come along?

We didn’t need asking twice.

In the evening, Julia drove up the windy round into the hills, and we asked someone near to the previous restaurant if he knew of this ‘other’ restaurant, with the beautiful view of the lake. He pointed us in the direction we were going, and it was interesting for us in the car to interpret his arm movements and gestures. We didn’t need to hear what he was saying.

We found the restaurant, although we still weren’t sure it was the restaurant, but never mind. The food was nice.

When we got back to camp, we said our goodbyes, as we were likely to be leaving early-ish in the morning.