We’ve spent the last two days in the Italian Lakes area. Lago di Garda was very pretty with sheer cliffs on one side and nice beaches on the other. When we arrived at the lake we were a bit daunted by the number of people at the south end so decided to carry on north. As the lake got narrower, the access road became quite narrow and busy, and we couldn’t find anywhere to stop the Enterprise for quite a while. It’s quite frustrating when that happens – we drive past all these lovely spots with no way to park. Eventually we found a campground near the pretty town of Malcesine, near the top of the lake. There was a nice cooling breeze at the lake and we found out afterwards that there are 50 different winds at different times of day and in different seasons that have been named by the locals. There are two major ones – one blows from midnight until late morning from the south, then after midday the other one blows from the north until the evening – it’s a great lake for windsurfers and sailors because of this. I was thinking that in NZ we don’t really think to name our winds – they’re just hot westerlies or cold southerlies – maybe we should give them mysterious names...
We biked down the hill to the lake for a swim that evening and in the morning biked to the town and had a look around the castle as well. We haven’t seen many castles in Italy, lots of pretty towns with churches and cathedrals or basilicas, even palaces; but not many castles. The powers that be obviously weren’t into castles as a status symbol as much as the French and British.
After lunch we drove down the other side of Lago di Garda and onto Lago di Como. It was a spectacular drive down the western side of Lake Garda. The whole length of the lake is steep cliffs so there is no place for a road. They’ve solved the problem by using a series of tunnels, some are quite short and look like they’re just hewn rock; others are much longer and look like proper tunnels with concrete sides and roof. One even had an intersection inside where it met with another road.
Large trucks were using the road as well as a lot of cars and we were lucky enough to get behind a petrol tanker which made sure the traffic was well out of the way as we followed through. In places the road wasn’t really wide enough for two-way traffic...
Lago di Como is also pretty, surrounded by villages perched on the hillsides. We couldn’t see much of the lake as we drove about 30km up it; the road up is almost one continuous tunnel. We went for a swim when we arrived, the lakes are a lot colder than the Mediterranean but still warmer than Lake Taupo.
In the morning there was lots of thunder and lightning and finally rain. I had gone to the cafe in the campground to use the internet, Gus joined me there. When it started raining hard we thought we’d better get back to the Enterprise – on the way it started to hail! Bit of a change from the weather we’ve been having up till now. The rain was short-lived though, gone in 20 minutes.
We drove down the lake we were on and crossed the Swiss border then found a camping ground at Lake Maggiore – this lake goes over the border from Italy to Switzerland. The road on the Italian side was extremely narrow in places – to the point of ridiculous – it always seems as though the smallest vehicles (especially the motorbikes) take up the most room! The border was an anticlimax – some guards were there and it all looked very official with an office etc, but they just waved us through. The road improved markedly after we crossed the border, we were expecting the language on the signs to change, but then remembered that this part of Switzerland speaks Italian, very confusing – we won’t know whether to Guten Tag or Bonjorno.
By the time we got to the campground it was pouring down, we could barely see out the windscreen. I took a photo as Puke and Shady discussed the weather... So we spent an enforced lazy afternoon with books as more lightning, thunder and torrential rain did its thing. Welcome to Switzerland! As I’m writing this though, the sun is coming out, so hopefully the weather will improve. We’re camped right next to Lake Maggiore, with big mountains all around, very picturesque.
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