Farewells complete at San Stino and Anone Veneto and with plans to see parts of Lake Garda, Lake Como that day and Lake Maggiore the next day, we set off for the Lakes District…
Sirmione was our first stop on the shores of Lake Garda. Being on peninsula within Lake Garda, we expected it to be picturesque and perfect for a lunch stop. Unfortunately there was a blanket of nebbia (fog) and we couldn’t see more than 50 metres out from the shore. When we went walking by the lake to take in the atmosphere, we were attacked by clouds of midges which led us to beating a hasty retreat to the car. What the heck, we thought, we’ll try the next lake!
A short trip towards Lecco, which is on the shores of Lake Como, showed us some beautiful scenery and allowed the (what we would soon realise was typical) Italian traffic signage to mislead us. We eventually found Lecco (and shortly after, Lake Como) and had lunch looking out over a very beautiful lake (fog mostly lifted by this time). After a stroll through a (mostly) junk market, we were off to catch up with another of Nadia’s Zias at Como (or so the plan went…). More Italian signage and extremely vague directions saw us driving in varying circles for about an hour before we gave up and headed for plan B -Lake Maggiore and our accommodation in Arona. Finding our way back to an Autostrada with only one postage stamp for signage took us around another hour but once we did find it, another hour saw us in Arona and REALLY ready for some of the Italian wine!!!
Next morning we wandered into Arona and headed straight for the ferry terminal to get to Isola Bella. On inspection of the timetable, we found that we could get there soon but could not return until about on dark – not good with a drive to Tuscany to go that day! So off we headed to Stresa (halfway up the western shore of the lake) where ferries ran half hourly all day.
As we drove into the terminal car park at Stresa, we received directions from a very helpful and very official looking “gentleman” (one of many in the car park) showing us where to park, where to get parking tickets, where to get ferry tickets… How helpful we thought. Well, it turns out that we purchased a ticket using a water taxi and not the ferry (10 metres away and a quarter of the cost!). Never-the-less, Isola Bella was well worth it. Palazzo Borromeo is a stunning palace with equally stunning gardens famous for it’s grottos and white peacocks.
After returning to Stresa and wandering through the streets taking the sights for a while, we headed off to Fosdinovo, our gateway to Tuscany and Cinque Terra. On the way, we passed Genova on the elevated autostrada. While travelling on Autostrade always involves a fee, one look at the alternative routes and this could be double or triple the cost and we would still pay it happily! Genova looked like a huge kids project that had been carefully planned by several disagreeing ADD sufferers. On the Autostrada, we happily sailed over it all and through never ending tunnels to come out at our destination with sanity still intact (relatively).