Day 1 - Thursday - Airport to Gargnana.
Having packed like a demon all day Wednesday, it felt strange to be pootling around the house with little to do on Thursday monrning. As I hoovered, I couldn't help feeling like I'd forgotton to pack something essential. However, taxi came at 10:30 and put me out of my misery! On to the airport for a relaxed checkin (we WEREN'T over the luggage limit after all) an early lunch and some pootling before our gate was called. Since we were flying EasyJet, it was a terrible run towards the gate, even with our priority boarding, and some significant elbowing as we queued to board, but we did manage to get a row to ourselves (plane not oversold - what a surprise!) and the flight was uneventful, if a little delayed.
We deboarded at ltaly into a slight atmostphere of chaos. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but there's a sense of disorganisation, even when there's no evidence of it! We picked up our luggage, wandered about the terminals looking for our car hire and finally found the Hertz office operating out of a van parked in the carpark. We finally loaded ourselves into our chariot, which I felt was a bit big for Italian roads, but still very comfortable and shiny. On with us, to the roads of Italy.
Italian drivers. Wow. No fear, no brakes, no stress. And no speedometers, as far as we could tell, or, in fact, speed cameras. LD was the picture of calmness, where as I spent a while clinging to the side of the car, with an expression of "we're all going to die". Evenually, it all settled and we came off the motorway for Lake Garda, where we drove up towards Gargnano for our first night's stay. The scenery was spectacular, Garda's the biggest of the lakes, and the busiest, but coming to the end of the season, it wasn't too busy. We had a little fun trying to find our hotel, and then trying to park, but after some manoeuvring, we squeezed ourselves into a space and checked into our hotel - a basic but clean room, with plenty of space, and a view over the lake :) Our terrible lack of Italian was already beginning to show but we managed none the less. Dinner was a bit disappointing but a walk on the lakeside wasn't - the water lapping at the edges of the restaurants and lights around the lake reflected to form two strands of light under the darkness of mountains...
We deboarded at ltaly into a slight atmostphere of chaos. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but there's a sense of disorganisation, even when there's no evidence of it! We picked up our luggage, wandered about the terminals looking for our car hire and finally found the Hertz office operating out of a van parked in the carpark. We finally loaded ourselves into our chariot, which I felt was a bit big for Italian roads, but still very comfortable and shiny. On with us, to the roads of Italy.
Italian drivers. Wow. No fear, no brakes, no stress. And no speedometers, as far as we could tell, or, in fact, speed cameras. LD was the picture of calmness, where as I spent a while clinging to the side of the car, with an expression of "we're all going to die". Evenually, it all settled and we came off the motorway for Lake Garda, where we drove up towards Gargnano for our first night's stay. The scenery was spectacular, Garda's the biggest of the lakes, and the busiest, but coming to the end of the season, it wasn't too busy. We had a little fun trying to find our hotel, and then trying to park, but after some manoeuvring, we squeezed ourselves into a space and checked into our hotel - a basic but clean room, with plenty of space, and a view over the lake :) Our terrible lack of Italian was already beginning to show but we managed none the less. Dinner was a bit disappointing but a walk on the lakeside wasn't - the water lapping at the edges of the restaurants and lights around the lake reflected to form two strands of light under the darkness of mountains...