OK, so last night I had dinner at Il Girasole (Via Vittorio Emanuelle 72). Such a cute little place, just look at the view from outside:
Ah, so pretty...
I had the mushroom risotto, but I felt the rice was a bit under cooked. However, they definitely deserve a mention because the staff was so sweet. I got free Limoncello and some free little sweet snacks. It was also the perfect spot to do some people watching…
After dinner I wandered around to see what Sirmione looks like at night – the rain had cleared and it was a nice evening outside. There are beautiful little cafes everywhere, much like this one:
I'm a total sucker for fairy lights
And how cute is this little shop with its purple flowers…
I want to buy whatever is inside there!
And here’s a view of the lake at sunset:
So calm...
But now back to today… and the sun is out finally! Have I mentioned that I live right next door to a real freakin’ castle!?! With a moat and swans and everything! It’s awesome. I open my balcony door in the morning and its right there staring me in the face.
Ta da! Howdy neighbours...
And here’s what’s right in front of the castle:
Just some random awesomeness
I went down to a little café close to the water this morning for my staple cappuccino & small croissant. Shortly after I sat down, this British tour group arrived with their quite overly enthusiastic tour group operator. I suddenly felt like I was on the set of “Little Brittain”. This tour operator was just too funny to be real! She spoke so fast she sounded like she was on speed or something and she seemed more excited about Lake Garda than anybody else on planet earth. Haha. Anyways, the cool thing was that I did pick up some good tips on where to go… you see, there are so many towns on Lake Garda to choose from, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and my trusty Lonely planet guide doesn’t really cover this are in much detail. She suggested to them that if they only had one day here, they should take the ferry to Garda Town, walk around there and have lunch, then walk along the 3-4 km boardwalk to Bardolino, stroll around there and then take the ferry back to Sirmione again. I thought “Hmmm, that sounds brilliant, that’s what I’ll do then!” Thank you very much to the sweet yet crazy lady. 🙂
But before I headed down to the ferry station, I first decided to check out the two main attractions in Sirmione: “Grotte di Catullo” & and the castle. The first one actually has nothing to do with caves as name would suggest, it is basically the ruins of an old Roman Villa. It was incorrectly named when explorers saw it from the lake side and mistook it for caves. The walk there was really nice – you have the option to pay some dude 1 euro to take you in a little golf cart thing – but I figured that’s just plain lazy.
Now why exactly would you want to golf cart it through here?
Here’s a mock-up of what the villa would have looked like in its full form:
Not too shabby hey
Here’s what it looks like now:
Someone should have done a better job with the maintenance. haha.
And one more, just so you can judge the scale:
Now that's how you make an entrance people
Walking around the ruins, it was quite insane to think that people actually lived in such a massive structure… Next I headed off to the castle to go and explore the inside. Something I’ve picked up is that every time I need to pay for entry somewhere, they ask me whether I’m not a student. I sooooo wish I had organised a fake student card now! I could be saving tons of cash which could be better spent on shoes & bags. Damn it… I guess I could just say “well yes, I am a student” – but then what if they ask for my identification? “Uno problemo” Anyhoo, I paid the full 4 euro and let it go. From the top of the castle walls you get a really nice view of Sirmione:
Hello Sirmione!
And then this is the back end of the caste, leading into the lake:
Hmmm, there seems to be a bit of water damage...
After exploring the castle, I headed down to the ferry to start my Lake Garda adventure (as suggested by that funny tour lady). The ferry costs 7.5 euros and it took about 50min to get to Garda.
My "awful" view while waiting for the ferry 🙂
I overheard quite a few tourists on the ferry talking about which town they though was the best, the views were mixed and it seems that each and every town on Lake Garda is beautiful & interesting in its own right. It doesn’t seem like you can really go wrong with picking which town you want as your base.
My first glimpse of Garda
I tried to do some shopping before settling down for lunch, but I seemed to have gotten myself into a “what if I find something better?” buying rut. Hopefully it’s just temporary…
Out & about... trying to shop
My lunch spot was right in front of the water. I decided to go for some seafood as it just seemed fitting for this area:
Fried calamari, side salad & some vino. Perfection.
It’s dawned on me that you guys are probably looking at these food shots thinking that I actually am finishing off those huge portions and am going to come home the size of a house. Haha. Not to fear, I am waaaaaay to controlling for that to ever happen. Plus, my best trick is to always balance the eating out with lots of walking. So after lunch I started my 40min walk to Bardolino. As I was leaving though, I was distracted by trying to tie my jersey to my satchel and I didn’t notice one of those mime guys that just stand perfectly still. This one was relatively small and dressed like Pinocchio (yes, I know… weird, right?). As I passed him he shouted “Ciao Bella” and I got such a fright I almost pee’d my pants! That’s right; Pinocchio scared the crap out of me. 🙂
The boardwalk to Bardolino was immaculate. There were lots of benches for you to sit on and also little pebble beaches:
The journey from Garda to Bardolino - look on the right, that's a little beach...
Actually, these people clearly don’t know what a real beach is all about. Large pebbles are not comfortable to lie on people! You need super soft sand like on Clifton and Camps Bay! You could see all the indentations all over their poor bodies as they turned over to let the other side bake a bit. Shame man.
My first glimpse of Bardolino
Bardolino was just as beautiful as Garda. Lots of little cafes & shops and pretty flowers and brightly coloured buildings everywhere.
Just love all the bright colours...
Soon it was time for the ferry back to Sirmione again. Perfect timing as there was a thunderstorm brewing. Tomorrow I head of to Vernazza (Cinque Terre) – it’s quite a journey to get there and I have to head out quite early. So it will be an early night for me tonight.
Hugs & gelato. Xxx
PS. Not sure what the Internet situation will be in Vernazza… so might go quite until I reach Florence on Sunday eve. But let’s see how it goes…
My love affair with Italy... 