Lake Garda

Day Three Thursday 17 June 2010

Today's plan - head for Lake Garda. after a light breakfast we headed out onto the Italian highways, en route for the south end of Lake Garda.

When we left, it was a bright, sunny, pleasant morning as we headed for the A4 - the Autostrada route for a quick journey to our destination for the day. As me travelled we could see ominous black clouds in the distance and it wasn't long before our bright day became dark and dismal with HEAVY rain! This was no ordinary down-pour. It was torrential, with bursts of thunder & lightning and rain so heavy it reduced visibility horribly. I've never been so glad I wasn't driving!

After a bit the rain and skies lightened and we had a bit of blue sky but by the time we reached Peschiera on Lake Garda the rain was back! We had a quick look at the lake but as the visibility was still very poor it was difficult to appreciate its grandeur and beauty, so we went for lunch - courtesy of Ronald McDonald. By the time we had eaten, the weather had improved so we decided to drive a little way up the lake's east coast, to a place called Lazise - an historic and picturesque little town perched on the eastern shores of Lake Garda. The water was pretty choppy with enough splashing at the water's edge to dampen us dowm again after the sun had raised our spirits.

We had a bit of a walk around and saw a few nice buildings then paused for ice-cream and coffee - a tiramisu inspired ice-cream for me and assorted other exotic flavours for the Quins. For the second day running our consumption of ice-cream seemed to have a favourable effect on the weather, with clear skies and hot sunshine appearing. But, it was time to take to the highways again and make our way back to Lido de Jesolo.

After Claire and Orla had a quick swim we walked along to the nearest village for our evening meal -"Yes", you guessed it: more pizza and chips! Repetitive but highly acceptable! After stocking up on a few "evening provisions" we made our way back to the lodge for tea, cards and 'snashters'.