Day 40 - Lake Garda

Today we had no major plans sorted, except for the evening.

So we had booked the day before to have be in the early breakfast sitting (The accomodation did two timed slots for breakfast through COVID and they found it worked amazing so kept it!) After breakfast our plan was to see how far around Lake Garda we could get with the car (It’s busy!)

We drove through the historic town of Garda and as there is three main round abouts so it took a bit to navigate through, once through it was smooth driving. We tried to stop in one of the smaller villages but parking machine wasn’t playing ball so I stood admiring the view & the car parked without a ticket while Katie got some photos.
We ended up north side of Malcesine, the village has a medieval castle lakeside, we opted for a walk into the village and lunch here. I was feeling a wee bit under the weather from the amount of wine, I may or may not of consumed yesterday, so we had burgers and chips for lunch. We walked through the village and started to head back to the car, it was getting hot and we wondering if we swim here or back at Bardolino (The real troubles on holiday) I was hot and bothered and feeling like I needed something to put a spring in my step, so we walked back to the car, got changed and headed 2minutes away from the car to a little pebble beach.
Upon walking near the entrance of the car park I noticed a lot of cars lined up, most car parks were full as we came through hence why we were happy to walk a bit further. These people were waiting for someone to come out of the car park so they can get a car park, we found this very strange but if they are happy to wait in the sun, in their cars, I’ll still call them idiots! We got the beach, I went in first, now we are used to the Mediterranean sea, balmy 26-28 degrees… this was very cold. Lake Garda is 300m deep in some parts and is feed from the hills/Dolomite area surrounding the lake, so naturally its cold icy water. Nether the less, the body got used to it and it was very relaxing! Katie took longer but finally made it in!

We drove back to Bardolino, on the drive we saw a motor bike rider had collided with a car, after seeing them ride around here I wasn’t surprised to see it, luckily he just seemed pretty cut up and some locals directing traffic.
We rested, showered and got ready to have our night out in Verona. We have to drive 40minutes to Verona to watch the opera classic, Aida. The Verona opera festival has been held for 100years now and the shows take place in the Verona Arena, the Verona Arena is much like the Colosseum, just smaller and better preserved.
We got to Verona and had dinner in Piazza Bra, the piazza is set with the Verona Arena at the centre, this is the first time we opted for a dinner near a land mark - food was all good, nothing amazing - The Gelato we found down the road was worthy of a mention though!

We went into the Arena ready for the show, there is strict rules about what your allowed to bring and no recording devices. Well when it started there was masses on their phones recording so really helped the ambiance of the Opera… I opted to take a photo as they finished the intermittence of the show seeing everyone else had taken some. Photos don’t do it justice for the Arena or the performance itself.
We were seated up top of the Arena, this is on the stone steps so luckily we had brought blankets and jackets to sit on.
The Opera was amazing, I wasn’t expecting the end of the story as I had I only read the story 3/4 of it online, so that was a nice surprise.

We drove back to Bardolino to our accomodation after the performance which ended at midnight.Read more