Fainting Kids And An Emotional Return

How the Italians manage to work in this heat is beyond me. Although working at anything other than a snails pace is beyond them. Once we had gotten our heads around Italian time it all works perfectly. If you want to catch a scheduled bus at 11.30 be prepared to wait until 12.00. If you want a taxi be prepared to hang around while he decides if it is worth his while and if you want a bell boy to help you lug your bags to your room be prepared to do it yourself. If I had known just how far up the hill our room was I would have waited until hell froze over for the bell boy, but being on English time and wanting desperately to get out of my jeans that were stuck to my legs like a (very) wetsuit I decided to lug our luggage myself, up, up and up until just short of heart failure and less a couple of litres of body fluid we reached our room. On a positive side it does have a vast balcony with what must be one of the most wonderful views of Garda and the lake beyond.

Once we had recovered from our journey it was only fair that a sample of the local vino, which we fell in love with on our first visit to the area, was called for. A few bottles of Bardalino later and Italian time started working its magic on us all!

Our first day was spent walking the streets of Garda, stopping off at various lakeside cafe's, sampling the famous Italian ice cream, coffee and Peroni. The second day I decided on the spur of the moment that we should take a stroll along the lakeside walkway to Bardolino, having read on tripadvisor that it was a beautiful way to spend an afternoon. Unfortunately you shouldn't believe everything you read. The stroll started well enough until just after the point of no return you suddenly come up to a campsite on one side of the walkway and hundreds of winnibago type campers on the lake side of the walkway jostling for position with their fold up camp tables, sun beds, deck chairs and cool boxes that look more like chest freezers. I was wondering if those folded away too! Let's just keep on walking it won't be long before the campsite is out of the way we stupidly thought. It sprawled all along the lakeside, spewing out camper after camper until Bardalino came in sight, and to make matters worse Oscar was hobbling and moaning because his flip flops had rubbed and caused blisters in between his toes. If you have ever been on a sweltering hot holiday on a dusty walkway with thousands of happy campers and a moaning teenage kid with bad feet you will know exactly how I was feeling at that moment .....and people wonder why I drink so much! To cut a long story short our trip to Bardolino was a really nice one once I had binned the bloody flip flops and spent a small fortune on a pair of Converse Pumps for Oscar who seemed to recover very well after that!

Please don't read this blog thinking that everything is disastrous for us as it is far from it. We are having a wonderful time here but it doesn't make for good reading when all I am telling you is how wonderful this meal was or that boat trip or that stroll along the the walkway in the other direction was. So I am trying to concentrate on the things we have done and are now laughing at after the consequences have dispersed.

A case in point would be our day trip to Melcesine, which is about twenty miles up the lake with a cable car that transports you to the top of Monte Baldo.

After waiting forty five minutes extra for the local bus (remember we are on Italian time so it didn't bother us) we got to Melcesine and walked up to the cable car station where we were greeted with a line of people snaking around the steps and up the road. The decision to join the back of the queue was taken and we kept telling ourselves as it juddered along that it wouldn't be too long before we were in the relative sanctuary from the beating sun of the station. After an hour or so we were there only to discover that the line of Sweaty Fat Germans was not only snaking outside the building but also up three flights of stairs in an un-air conditioned state of distress. We had come this far it would be silly to waste the money and turn back now I told everyone, who didn't look the slightest bit convinced but we carried on up and up and up until we finally reached the turnstiles and the vision of fresh air filled mountain with a cable car making its way toward us. All of a sudden the doors across the way opened and dozens of mountain bikers emerged fresh faced and not sweaty at all as if they had just stepped out of a mountain biking commercial. They were led to the front of the queue and given priority boarding in the next two cable cars while we were stuck behind plate glass doors watching them take in the mountain air. This sight proved too much for Oscar who was already feeling very nervous about going on a cable car in the first place. His eyes suddenly dilated and he keeled over in a fainted heap on the floor. After administering lots of iced water (thank god for the cool bag back pack I bought) to his head and neck and giving him a drink and something to eat he thankfully recovered but Debra was in a flap and Olivia thinking she was missing out on the attention began to swoon and had to be helped to the floor where the Italian male attendants came to her rescue with cool damp cloths for her brow. After letting another cable car go we had given the crowd enough to look at and Debra was adamant that we should forgo the ordeal we had been through and leave. Desperate to go on the damn cable car I persuaded Oscar that everything would be ok once we were up the mountain. He didn't look too convinced and the look from Debra would have knocked me out cold if I had given it a second thought. We finally got to the top of the mountain and it was as spectacular as I had imagined it would be. There were even bars up there for me to calm myself down in. The sight of paragliders running down the slope and taking to the sky from the top of the mountain with the lake thousands of feet below has to be one of my top memories of our Holiday to date. Thankfully the journey down was no where near as dramatic, but the sights were just as spectacular!

Yesterday we took a much more sedate journey on the lake by ferry boat to Sirmione and Salo, which is the village we stayed in all those years ago. Walking past our hotel and around the beautiful back streets brought back so many delightful memories of our visit when Debra was pregnant with Olivia and it was quite emotional to leave and watch the village fade in the distance hoping that one day we will return!