Lake Garda

On our way out of Verona, it seemed a shame to miss out on seeing Italy's largest lake before heading to Alba.  With 142 square miles of surface area and many resort towns dotted along is banks it is a valley paradise in the summer for Italians and tourists.  I had an idea to expect incredible views from the pictures of the Airbnb we booked for our two days there.

In Bardolino

Our route to the lake took us through yet another wine region (unknown to us) called Bardolino.  Mike had arranged a tasting at Guerrieri Rizzardi.  We tasted some lovely wines and bought a bottle (or 2). I also had to have a bottle of their Amarone Balsamic Vinegar.  I think we are going to need a bigger suitcase. :-)  The winery guide recommended a lakeside restaurant on our route, we plugged the address into the GPS and headed toward it.

Guerrieri Rizzardi Winery

Our plan was to drive the lakeside road up one way to Limone and then depart for Alba the other way around the lake so we could see almost all the coastline As we began to enter the Lake Garda area, the scenery was nothing short of magnificent.  The lake to our left, with adorable little resort towns dotting the narrow strips of land between the road and the lake.  To the right were shear rock walls with more homes, hotels, even campgrounds sprinkled throughout the hillsides wherever they could be nestled into the rock.  I have literally never seen anything so picturesque.  We were lucky to be driving through on a Wednesday with light traffic on the one lane road around the lake.

Glimpse of lake

Castelleto was just one of the many little resort areas we would see on this route.  Unfortunately Ristoranti Da Umberto was closed on Wednesdays when we arrive.  We were sad, and pretty hungry.  We happened upon a little bistro that was also lakeside and were soon happy and full from the delicious tagliatelle with duck ragu and pizza which we ate outside in the sunshine.  We walked around a bit then headed on to Limone Sul Garda.

Lunch in Castelleto

Duck Ragu

It was hard to keep our eyes on the road, trying to soak in all this natural beauty of rock faces, homes seemingly hanging off rocks and water.
We followed the GPS up this incredibly small lane, that looked more like a driveway, and I mean up.  The little Fiat Panda had a hard time climbing us up the very steep inclines to our next apartment.  We got a little lost, but finally met up with our Airbnb hostess.  She was the mother of the apartment owner.  She was very nice, but spoke very little English.  She showed us around the apartment quickly and then we were on our own to explore.

The pink building at the top of the hill in the trees was our apartment

The drive up was pretty hairy so we took off on foot to find provisions.  What goes down, must come up!  As we descended down toward the town, we came across a small local products market where we bought a few items for our short stay.   We did not find the supermarket that we thought was nearby, so we trekked back up the hill to our apartment. I got my steps in here in Limone, no problem.

Surprisingly, the SpaghettiHaus restaurant was just at the base of our first hill, a short walk from our flat.  There was also a pool at the restaurant that was available for our use.  Not being pool weather for us, we did not partake.  The restaurant however turned out to be both very good and a godsend as driving the roads at night in this area would have been a bit challenging. We ate dinner there both nights.  Lake Garda is apparently a preferred tourist destination for many people from Germany and Austria.  All the menus are in Italian, German and English.  We had schnitzel and fries on the first night which was very good and mussels in red sauce and steak the next night, quite the diversion from typical Italian fare.

The weather was spectacular on our first morning so we walked into the town to catch the ferry boat to Malcesine.  On our walk down we were treated with some more amazing natural beauty.  We also found the little supermarket which was about two steps past where we had walked the night before. Duh!  Malcesine was overwhelmed by tourists, every street was a mass of humanity.  We quickly separated ourselves from the main streets and ventured to a little restaurant for lunch.  It was OK, not the best food we had had.

Ferry ride to Malcesine

We walked up to the gondolas for the trip up to Mount Baldo.  After an hour wait, the tram car took us up 5000 ft to the mountain above.  We walked around in awe, briefly contemplating our relative insignificance in the world as seeing large million year old rocks tends to do.

We then happened upon the cliff area where 50 to 70 paragliders were on the grassy hill awaiting take off.  There was a guy acting as "air traffic control" and on his command, one to two persons would walk swiftly toward the edge of the mountain and like a baby bird on its first flight jump from the ground awkwardly until air caught in the glider kite.  Silently they would float up off the edge of the world and fly about like kites on a string but they were tethered to only their rider.  It was stunning to watch.  We had seen them flying down while on the ferry which seemed magical, but watching them take off from the top was truly wondrous.

Paragliders

We took the gondola back down in time to catch the ferry back to Limone.  We had a lovely walk through the downtown streets and made our way back up the long hill to our flat.

Limone Sul Garda

We had some wine and cheese on the deck watching the sun set over the lake.  While we noshed, we were treated with several small bats that flew around above us at dusk, cleaning up some of the insect population over the olive trees I assume.

Happy Hour view from our flat

Breakfast view from our flat

Lake Garda is a special place, may have to come back and stay longer and lower. :-)

But Janice, where are all your signature pictures of food and wine?  Just wait, up next the Alba International White Truffle Festival, you will not be disappointed.