A lovely morning greets us and we actually get a good look at Lake Garda from the campsite before we leave, without the low cloud cover…
An uneventful journey takes us the rest of the way across northern Italy to a long strip of beach, just on the other side of Venice – the Lido di Jesolo….
A 15km stretch of sandy beach – as far as the eye can see and beyond….
This will do nicely for a few days off, is it a bad thing to be grateful for a few days of nothingness? Nothing spectacular, historic, pretty or stunning – just a long stretch of more or less empty beach backed by empty hotels and sunshine – ideal….
The difference a day makes – having looked set for an unsettled week, the weather has brightened up overnight and another beautiful day has come our way. Good news for us as we have planned a fairly lengthy walk along the peninsula that is Sirmione, one of the most popular spots on Lake Garda.
Again access to the foreshore of Lake Garda is limited but we grabbed each opportunity even if it did add a mile or 2 todays excursion….
As we arrived at the main old town of Sirmione (having wandered through many leafy and affluent residential areas and hotels), this beauty was parked in one of the many car parks on the outskirts…
Rather ruined as the side was plastered with promotional stickers for some Real Estate company – how crass?
Though busy the main entrance to the old town was guarded by this magnificent castle – Castello Scaligero….
We meandered our way through the busy narrow streets lined with shops, bars and Gelateria’s and more typically quieter residential side streets….
Dipping out to check on Lake Garda where possible….
The far end of the peninsula was much quieter and largely occupied by manicured grounds of fancy hotels
At the very end is the Grotto di Catullo a chargeable museum, which we didn’t go into, enjoying the far reaching Lake views instead…
And on the return journey a visit to the much quieter and off the main beaten track, San Pietro in Mavino and its Bell tower dating back to the 1300’s….
On our return we found ourselves a nice quiet spot by the Lake to enjoy a pastry with our coffee and to rest our tired legs….
Before making our way back to the Castle and to prepare ourselves for the long walk home….
As forecast the weather broke during the night and continued with on off rain and cloud for the duration of our rather long drive (circuitous rather than miles), avoiding the toll roads (mainly because of the difficulty of getting and paying for the tolls in a right hand drive than cost) and heading inland to our next location – Lake Garda.
The first half of the drive was slowly wending our way up over and through the Tuscan-Emilian Pennines – many times breaking above the lower clouds – spectacular in itself….
The second half was very flat from around Parma with it mostly being arable farmland and more latterly vineyards as we eventually arrived at our site for the next few nights on the outskirts of Sirmione right on the shore of Lake Garda.
Once settled we took a break in the weather to wander towards Desenzano, disappointed to find that access to the lake was mostly taken by extravagant residences or luxury hotels (Lake Windermere all over again) and we had to make do with the odd opportunity to see the Lake….
Cloud cover prevented us from enjoying the full experience but the stunning palette of blues and wildlife helped!
As it looked like we might be pushing our luck weatherwise, we headed back to the site and enjoyed a few moments on the site foreshore, before returning to the van and settling in for the evening….
Continuing on from yesterday’s blog, we arrive at Vernazza, one of the smaller villages. It is by now mid afternoon and this small village, again centred around the harbour is very busy, as people continue to arrive – the trains continue well into the evening….
We quickly pass the crowds and head straight down to the harbour, where there is a nice little beach, too busy for us to linger….
A nice walk along the harbour wall, affords great views of this pretty village….
And we do manage to find a way through under a natural archway to a relatively secluded spot of beach (and I mean spot) for us to sit, catch our breath and cool down for a bit….
Going back to late morning, when we ended up at Montarosso, the closest village to Levanto, here we probably spent the most time, as unlike the other villages Montarosso is spread over a larger stretch of coastline with some pretty descent beaches and a combination of time and space meant that the crowds were much more dispersed….
Here we enjoyed a leisurely stroll along the sea front, firstly to Spiaggia di Gigante….
The beach was named after the (mostly) concrete statue of a Giant was sculpted as a feature to the adjoining Villa in 1910, ravaged by the sea and 2 World Wars the Giant was restored in 2021 and creates quite a feature….
Heading back along the promenade, looking down onto Fegina beach….
The far end of Fegina Beach is overlooked by a fortress of some kind (now a restaurant)….
And beyond the much quieter Spiaggia di Monterosso….
A very different experience to the other villages and nowhere near as isolated but a fine beach or two is always good in my experience.
An absolutely amazing day, a long one and both Tilly and I are shattered but enriched!
Thoughts of the day:
How amazing that these villages were only linked to civilisation with the building of the railway line in the late 1800’s but much more amazing and laudable is the fact that since then they haven’t been ruined by glassy new builds!
A much better day than forecast but still a reasonable amount of cloud and breeze around to make today’s outing pleasurable – especially as it was soo busy! An earlyish start as we caught the 9.30 shuttle bus down to the station and caught the train to Levanto again. This time though we only needed to alight at Levanto to pick up entry tickets to Cinque Terre National Park – the tickets included train travel between the villages as well as access to the many footpaths. We hopped back on the train and decided to start at the far end, getting out at our first village – Riomaggiore – the main hub of this beautiful village was very busy leading down to the focal point, the harbour….
From here we followed the coastal path, which was significantly quieter, around to the secluded stony beach….
Here the path ended and on our return we watched for a while as the rather choppy sea made havoc of those trying to embark and disembark the ferry that is an alternative mode of transport (at additional cost to the ticket that we had bought), between the villages….
Trying to keep our distance from the crowds we wandered back along the path enjoying the stunning views of the village and coast….
Battling our way around the small harbour to get alternative views of the village as it makes its way up the hillside, with agricultural terracing visible above the houses….
Very pretty indeed but an absolute nightmare to live I should imagine – this is a Monday in early May – July and August don’t bear thinking about!
At this point I made a bit of a cock up, assuming that all trains stopping at the station, would stop at each of the villages – wrong, so before we knew it we were back at the first village – Monterosso! However for the sake of continuity, the next village heading east to west is Manarola….
This village is perched high up on the cliff top, looking and reaching down to the small harbour….
Here too we found that most people were concentrated around the bars, shops and restaurants lining the main street down and surrounding the harbour and so we made our way to the coastal path and were rewarded with a bit of breathing space and some pretty spectacular views of the village and surrounding coastline….
This was in fact our last village of the day, as by this time it is late afternoon and the trains are jam packed and frankly we have had enough. Fortunately, we had saved the least picturesque village (allegedly), Corniglia to last and contented ourselves with distant coastal views from Manarola…
We shall continue this excursion in tomorrow’s blog, otherwise it is at risk of becoming to media heavy to open….
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