We spent Monday visiting the nearest main town Salo, about 5 km up the lake side. Salo was damaged by an earthquake in 1901 and most of the historic buildings were damaged, but they have rebuilt quickly and they’ve created a beautiful lakeside promenade. Lake Garda is huge and there are lots of boats, both ferries taking passengers around and across the lake, and private boat owners who moor their boats there all year. Quite a few campers also tow boats behind their motorhomes and they stay at sites with access to the lake. It’s really entertaining watching them all, and also the different birds – we saw swans with cygnets, ducks and ducklings, moorhen, coots and swallows all from the small beach at our campsite.
Tuesday we set off early to Desenzano, 15 km to the south, to catch the train into Verona. We managed to buy the tickets from a machine which allowed us to select an English translation, but as we finished warned us that we had to have our tickets validated before travelling or face a hefty fine. There was no one around to ask, but we eventually found a small yellow box (looks like postbox) on the platform into which you inserted one end of the ticket and it date stamped it for you. From then on it was plain sailing.
The train was really easy, and only took about half an hour to get to Verona. We’d been given a walking tour by the helpful guy at San Felice’s Tourist Information, so we set off to follow this. It started in the Piazza Bra, the main square and centre of Verona. It’s dominated by the Roman amphitheatre, which is the third largest in the world. It was built in the first century AD and for almost 400 years gladiators fought one another there, before Emperor Honorius banned gladiator games in 404 AD. After that it fell into disrepair, and was severely damaged by earthquakes but in recent times it’s been used as a venue for opera and theatre productions during the Festival season. When we were there the Festival season was in full swing (Aida was being performed that evening), and a comprehensive programme of events was taking place. As there were a number of different productions, the sets for those not ‘on stage’ are stored in the Piazza Bra – it’s odd to walk past all these props – we saw broken gun carriages, bits of statues the size of a small house, a hand as big as the caravan; very odd!
After pursuing the amphitheatre from the outside and walking amongst the props, we continued on the tour on the Via Mazzini, the large pedestrianised shopping area to the most visited and popular of Verona’s attractions – Juliet’s balcony.
Now, this has to be one of the best ruses a City Council has ever dreamed up to make money. Juliet is of course a character from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which is set in Verona. In fact he set quite a few of his plays in Northern Italy, although he never visited himself. The fathers of Verona decided that despite Juliet being a fictional character, and her home and balcony ‘made up’ they would nominate a house of the right age, in the right area, and with a balcony, and call it Juliet’s house. It’s now the most visited tourist attraction in the city – and you have to pay to go in!
There’s also a statue of Juliet; legend has it that if you touch her right breast, you will find the love of your life. Most visitors we saw didn’t seem to know which breast was the most important so grabbed both!
Despite it only being a Tuesday you could barely get near the place. Needless to say we didn’t stop long. However the best bit is the two walls which are covered in love notes from people visiting the house, either swearing undying love for each other or asking Juliet to help them find their true love.
We continued our tour, taking in the Piazza delle Erbe, Piazza dei Signori (lots of Piazza’s in Italy!) and the Fortress of the Scaliger. This is a castle which was built with a moat and private escape bridge not to defend against outsiders, but to keep the Veronese people at bay, as they hated the Scala family dynasty. Ironically it was the Milanese Visconti – an outsider – who finally conquered it and put an end to the rule of the Scaliger in Verona.
After a fortifying lunch and glass of wine at a pavement cafe we decided to take the train back to Desenzano. By this time it was very hot, well over 30 degrees, so we slowly retraced our steps to the station, discovered we needed the Milan train, bought our tickets and boarded early, sitting upstairs – our first time upstairs in a train! It was great to get into the car and get the aircon going, and after a quick stop off at Lidl on the way home we got back to the site. Lidl has the same produce everywhere in Europe, although there are regional variances which make it quite entertaining to shop there! In particular we’ve found a local white wine (Lugano) which is really good – so all you Lidl shoppers look out for it!
It seems to be a ‘badge of honour’ if you return to a campsite year after year, and it is a topic much discussed among fellow campers of all nationalities. We’ve met some lovely people at this site, in particular a very friendly British family – the aforementioned Frank, Carol and son Grant.
They have been staying staying at Camping Ideal Molino for 17 years and so were able to give us lots of useful tips and ideas of places to visit and to eat. The one place we didn’t get to was Limone, about 2 hours north of where we were, where Frank assured us the lemons are the size of large grapefruit – maybe next time Frank! However, beating 17 years hands down, we met another lovely family from the Netherlands who had been returning to the site for 47 years. This year they had their daughter and grandson with them – they were all very well liked and respected by everyone, site owners and campers. On Wednesday we again walked into San Felice, this time to visit the local market where we stocked up on fruit and veg before stopping for a coffee. Our new Dutch friends were also at the cafe, so we shared a table and had a great chat while they waited for their daughter and grandson. He (Eldert) is 72 and his beautiful part Malaysian wife (who is 69 but whose name we’ve unfortunately forgotten) were charming, witty and spoke incredibly good English. Without becoming too political, the more people we meet on our trip, the more we don’t understand why the UK is leaving the EU. We are all European.
Anyway enough of that – we spent the rest of the day sorting out the caravan and car ready for our drive to Lake Como, before treating ourselves to an amazing dinner at the restaurant next door to the campsite. Just one more memory to add – we had a visit during the afternoon from the lovely Dutch lady, bringing us some fantastic olive and sun dried tomato bread from the local bakery as a gift as we had paid for their coffees that morning.