Lac Garda

Wow...  No wonder they filmed a great Bond flick here.  The views are just stunning.  The alps, the lake, lemon trees, a beautiful city on the water and an amusement park for the kids.  What's not to love?  By about this time, we'd decided that we were not going to go visit Greece this trip because they were in the middle of their election and we weren't sure we'd be able to get out.  We weren't going to be able to take the car through much of Greece as we wanted to spend most of our time on the islands and the ferry costs were out of our budget so it was looking like we'd have to try to do it by flying and the thought of Greek strikes stranding us for days with all our stuff didn't appeal.  

So we packed up the wagon, left Rome and headed back up past Florence again to Lake Garda.  Not that this was a hardship!   Our plan was to spend a week at Lake Garda and then a few more days in Florence before heading back south of Rome to see the Amalfi Coast and then perhaps further south before flying out of Rome on July 8th.    This was about 3 weeks earlier than we'd originally planned (July 31st out of Madrid) but we weren't able to rearrange the "free" flights we'd booked on points with Air Canada so we decided that we'd book a ticket with Scare Transat instead directly out of Rome.   This left us with our trusty Ford and we'd spend 6 weeks in Italy... a real hardship!

Lake Garda is about 5 hours north of Rome  pretty much in the middle of the peninsula right at the start of the Alps (Dolomites in Italy).  The waters are beautiful blue, the hills and mountains are stunning and I couldn't think of a better spot to just "drive".  I'll let the pictures talk for themselves.  No wonder all the Irish fly into Verona on Ryan Air for 28 Euro's and then spend a week here before turning around and heading home.  It's a very cheap vacation.  We'll be back.

On top of Mount Baldo looking down on the northern end of Lake Garda

The somewhat over aged  steer/calf still thinks he can get milk out of a hand...    The hills are alive with the sound of COW BELLS.  They are deafening up close. I don't know how the cows don't go nuts.  

Paragliders getting started (they are tandem here... but lots of folks learning singles as well).

Limone (Lemon trees all over the hills)

A little tunnel through the mountain they'd dug out and stuffed with high end shops!

This is where they filmed the opening car chase in the second last Bond flick the Quantum of Solace

A bit wet after a splash ride at the Amusement Park at Gardaland

Shawn wouldn't have anything to do with the ride but Rachel loves them more than Jen and I (which is saying something!)

A long day!

This was probably the freakiest ride we've ever done... the car follows the white rail (upside down and everything).    My ears still hurt from Jen and Rachel screaming as we went off the top rail.

Back at the campground, Shawn and Rachel would spend hours doing archery.

Pretty good shots!