Eurotrip day 6 30th Sep 2010 – Italy

We woke early and walked down to the deserted lakeside. As we got close to the lake we could hear birds in the reeds very loudly before we saw them all take off as one and fly in formation swooping across the sky before going on their way. That was a sight worth getting up for! We had heard about this happening a few particular times in the year at a point in Norfolk somewhere but we had been unable to make any of the dates this year so to suddenly see this over Lake Garda was quite a sight! We were unsure if the birds live here and do this every day, or if they were about to start their migration somewhere similar to this occurrence in Norfolk.

We walked along the jetty to get a good view of the sun rise and watched the sky change colour. The sky was pinky shades reminding me of the saying ‘red sky in the morning shepherds warning’ we thought bad weather must be fairly imminent and we must treat today as our last day of summer! As the sun rose it was a spectacular shade of pink and we saw the colour reflected in the water as the ducks swam around. We were glad we had made the effort to get up and see this as it wouldn’t be the same in the rain! We watched the sun climb higher in the sky before we left the jetty after taking photos. On our walk back to our chalet we found a restaurant serving a breakfast buffet so we stopped and sat down enjoying fresh fruit, cereal, breads, ham, cheese, jams and honey, cake and biscuits, many different types of coffee, juices and hot and cold ciocolatta.

Full up we then returned to our chalet, by this time it was 8.30am so we quickly did our washing to get it dry in the last of the sunshine before sitting outside in the gorgeous warmth of the sun’s rays on our veranda. After a while we decided to hire bicycles to enjoy what could be the last of the sunshine. I got an orange mountain bike and Alexa got a black ladies cycle with a basket on it to put her bag in, and my netbook, just in case.

Initially we just cycled round the edge of the lake, but then the path ran out so we headed up to the road. Then we cycled to the end of town. Then we decided to cycle to the next town which was 4km away but up a narrow piece of land sticking up into the lake called Sirmone. It took us about 40 mins and was about 6 miles from our chalet. We enjoyed seeing the sights of this town, including an impressive castle type building. We looked in a few shops before buying an enormous ice cream each and sitting in the sun on a wall to eat it. We then went on to a caffe for a drink before the cycle home. It only seemed to take 30 minutes to get back although it was the same distance – so we rode a total of about 12 miles!

We got back to the chalet rather weary and had a shower and got ready to go out. Then we went to a bar overlooking the lake watching the lights twinkle from the other lakeside towns over the water, as it was now dark, before heading to a restaurant to try lasagne and carbonara. Delicious!