Porta Romana

Today we leave Bardolino and start making our way to Milan, our final destination for Italy.

We were tossing up heading north around Lake Garda and seeing a small town called Limone Sul Garda or head to the South and see Sirmione. Seeing the traffic we encountered yesterday, we played it safe and headed for Sirmione.

The drive was nice going through lake side towns, as it was a Saturday it seemed very busy. We got outside of Sirmione and noticed traffic building up trying to get in the central car parks, we saw some free ones on a side road and thought suckers… we stopped for a coffee and a toilet pit stop, this is when I looked at google maps, reason everyone is willing to wait in massive lines is the 40 minute walk from where we were having coffee to the castle of Sirmione, Who’s the suckers now… well Katie took the backpack to save me so lets say Katie!
We got into Sirmione is now a resort town, it is known for its thermal baths & Roccas Scaligera, the medieval castle over looking the lake. At the tip of the peninsula of Sirmione is the site, Grotte di Catullo which is ruins of an old Roman Villa some 2000 years old, also the best beach in the area we were told. We grabbed some lunch and then opted for something we hadn’t really researched much, a 10euro boat tour of the peninsula for 25minutes. The company drives your around the peninsula, a couple of facts along the way, nice pictures and then gives the boat a wee bit of gas before the end for some fun. You come back under the draw bridge to the castle which was tight but awesome to see.

After this I had seen local busses running, found that for 1.50euro each we could catch the bus 5 minutes away from the car! So we opted for that instead of being sweaty messes.
Once back at the car we headed for Milan, a hour and half drive, as it is Italians main time to Holiday we found the Autostrada to have ‘Traffico Intenso’ - or in plain English, a heap of traffic so 130km wasn’t on the cards.
We got into Milan, got into the AirBnb and dropped our bags off and I went to take the car back alone to save Katie’s feet! Now I am not saying that I missed Katie in that short 10minute drive, but my phone decided to not connect to apple CarPlay, I did run a red light, I did get tooted and yelled at an intersection, for not going on a green when cars were blocking me and I got yelled at by the Europcar lady for parking in a taxi zone while trying to work out where she wanted the car parked. So Katie will now not be allowed to stay back doing the washing in future.

I opted to walk back as it was a 25minute walk and grabbed some supplies from the supermarket.

We had always planned to go to QC Terme, a tranquil Spa in Milan with lush gardens with saunas and spa pools. The spa is famous for its sensory rooms - such as a sauna set at 50degrees with soothing music and smells like roses, a rain room with screens around and when a storm comes on the screen it starts raining from the ceiling. They also have different kinds of relaxation rooms.
Katie & I found this great after the stress of the Metro - I brought a MilanoCard which no one can tell me how to activate it, (I even researched this massively) so I now have a dud card & had to buy a day metro pass. Also have the MilanoCard people emailing me saying activate through the app, the app says I need to pick it up… all in all, a massive stuff around. Also had scammers trying to sell us metro tickets while I was working out the MilanCard, by the third one I wasn’t replying that politely!
But the spa was amazing and very nice in the evening.Read more