Exploring Lake Garda

Today we celebrated Chris’ birthday, and further explored Lake Garda, visiting Malcesine and Sirmione.

We started today with cappuccinos as usual, and then hit the road for a big driving day. Today was Chris’ 34th birthday, and he wanted to further explore Lake Garda to celebrate. Our first stop was Malcesine, which we reached after traversing a very windy single lane with bidirectional traffic. We hadn’t realized what sort of road we were getting into until it was too late, and this was definitely Chris’ most stressful driving route! There were many times we, or someone else, had to stop and reverse to make way.

Once we reached Malcesine we were thrilled to find a beautiful city at the foot of the mountains, with a picturesque tower rising up from a castle right on the water’s edge. We could see a thunderstorm rolling in, so we opted to explore the castle and surrounding town first before the storm hit. The highlight of the town was climbing the castle’s tower for panoramic views of the town, lake, and nearby mountains.

After the castle we grabbed pizza and paninis from a local spot, just as the thunderstorm started. We opted to continue exploring and hustled through the rain to our next stop, a cable car running to the tops of the nearby mountains. After we got on we realized in hindsight a storm wasn’t the best time to ride the cable car, as the wind was buffeting us like crazy. Halfway up the cable car had some sort of technical issue, and we were stranded at the first stop with some other people for 30 minutes or so. In any case, they got everything working again, and we arrived to some epic views of the lake. We opted to run into the pouring rain to get some videos and pictures, and then ran back to the lodge at the top of the cable car to warm up, and ride back down.

Our next stop was Sirmione, which was an hour and a half drive away. We opted to drive right along Lake Garda for amazing views of the lake the whole way around. Thankfully the storm ended just as we started driving, and we arrived in Sirmione to perfect weather.

In Sirmione we explored the outskirts of their very cool castle, which is actually built in the lake, and uses the lake as a moat around it. Locals also park their boats in the moat, which is really unique to see and makes the area look like a James Bond movie. After the castle we walked the historic old town, and grabbed dinner at a local spot(Chris had lasagna, and Chels had veggie lasagna). After dinner we had the best gelato of the trip so far, enjoying passionfruit and mango sorbet from a local place that made their desserts in house.

Finally, we called it a night and made our two hour drive home. Tomorrow we head to the Dolomites!Read more