Today we planned to cycle
part of the way around the lake.
It was a hot humid day so we packed plenty of water along with our
lunch. The first part of the ride was on a cycle path shared with a lot of
slowly meandering tourists. This slowed us down but the when the cycle path
ended we were able to cycle quite fast for about 90 minutes reaching the
lakeside town of Malcesine. There was a
castle in this town and what fascinated us was the account of a naval
expedition through the mountains (Yes I meant naval!) where the venetians
transported frigates and other vessels to the lake to surprise the Milaneses
forces.
The town itself was lovely to wander through with its
cobbled alleyways and tourist shops. We had lunch here, by the lake and then
pedalled home. It only took us an hour
to cycle the 9 miles back. We made ourselves a cup of tea and took out onto our
private lakeside beach and then I went back into the van to catch up with the
blog.
After supper we walked back into the town, this time picking
up a free concert given by a quartet of 3 mandolins and a guitarist. It was
lovely to listen to their music in the warm evening air.
Wednesday 3rd July Lake Iseo
There had been a spectacular thunderstorm in the night with lightening illuminating the mountains in quite an eerie fashion. However, it
was a dry and humid morning with a lot of cloud cover. We packed up and got
ourselves ready to explore the opposite end of the lake. Our first stop was the
town of Garda. We had a walk through the town and our lunch here before moving
on to Sirmione. Here parking was limited and expensive so we drove through and
decided to move onto Lake Iseo. We found a good parking spot here and walked
down to the Tourist Information office by the lake to pick up maps and local
information. After walking around we
stopped at a bar in the Square in the centre of the town overlooking the lake.
Mike had an ice cream and I had a prosecco based cocktail. Both were very good.
Then we went back to the van for supper and walked back into town later in the
evening to watch the night life.
In the morning we moved the van to somewhere suitable for
all day parking and then got the bikes off. Today we intended to explore the
lake. We caught the 9.30am ferry to Monte Isola. This is recorded as being the
largest inhabited lake island in Europe but I am not that convinced of the
statistic as the circumference of the island is only 9km and Mike and I toured
this in about 40 mins and it didn’t look that inhabited. As we had got ridden
around the island so quickly we had about an hour to wait for the ferry to take
us on the next leg of our tour. It was
very hot and Mike had a quick doze in the sun.
The ferry took us to Tavernola on the west side of the island but
stooped off at various places on route so we had a good look at the surrounding
lake towns. After landing at tavernola we cycled the 20km or so back to Iseo.
It was a very hot day and when we stopped for lunch between Predore and sarnio it took little persuasion for me
to jump in the lake. The water temperature was around 20c so it was lovely and
refreshing.
By late afternoon we ready to set off for Lake Como. We had
identified a campsite outside of Lecco but when we got there it was full. The
first time this has happened to us – high season effect? This actually turned
out well for us as further down the road we found an ‘area de sosta’ in Mandello del Lario where we ended up
staying for two nights for 10 euros (much cheaper than the campsite). Once
parked up we walked down to the lake side and found a ferry office which gave
us details for our planned trip to Bellagio for tomorrow. We also found a lovely Italian bar with wifi
where we stopped for a beer whilst catching up on our e mails and ended up
having a pizza too.  |
| Bellagio |
Friday 5th July Bellagio
Mike went off to get bread first thing and then with lunch
made we headed for the little port to catch the 10.30am ferry to Bellagio. This
took about an hour on the boat and it was a lovely trip. Beautiful weather,
lake and mountain scenery plus all the interesting lakeside villas. We spent
the whole day at Bellagio as the earliest boat back was 4.30pm. It is one of
the most picturesque places we have visited on our trip. By the afternoon we
were uncomfortable hot and the only answer was to get in the lake. We came out
a bit ‘weedy’ but it was worth it. 
Back at the van we sorted out washing and headed for the
laundry. Later still we went back down to the lake where we knew we could pick
up wifi and skyped Millie.Saturday 6th July
Lake Como to Lake Lugano to Lake Maggiore
It was time to move on again. We set off early and headed
for the town of Como where we stopped for coffee and a walk around a small
market where we bought bread. We then headed for Cernobbio to see Villa D’este
but we did not stop here. Onto Laglio where George Clooney has a house. Mike
was very keen to see this so we had to stop on the upper road and take the
bikes off to cycle down into the village. Mike proudly found George's house and
very nice it was too. Someone was in but we didn’t see George although Mike
thinks he might have seen him on a bike a few minutes later. It was a hard, hot
climb back up to Buster and then we were back on the road. We left Lake Como at
Menaggio taking the road through the
hills, coming down to Lake Lugano at the top end of the lake. We travelled
through Lugano and stopped for lunch at Port Teresa.
It gets very confusing here as to whether you are in
Switzerland or Italy as we crossed the border more than once on our travels. We
eventually stopped in Italy north of Lucino. It was a wide laybay, with picnic
area and wonderful views of the lake. It was a beautiful spot. It was a bit of
a scramble down to the edge of the lake but it was hot and both Mike and I went
for a swim to cool down. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing Keele
work and Mike set up his telescope.
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