Lake Garda – a cultural experience

It has been a while since Max, Sidi and myself met in Cologne for spending a weekend together. So already a couple of months ago we figured that Italy in spring would definitely be worth a visit and Lake Garda would be the destination of our choice.

After having carried out the yearly Rallye for my fraternity on Thursday (1st May which was a bank holiday) I got on the train to Innsbruck were Max and Sidi already waited at the station to pick me up. By car it is only about 2 hours to reach Lake Garda. Accommodation was well chosen and booked on Thursday and so we directly checked in. I have to admit that I would have like to go to bed straight away but it also was quite to me that the first night of the trip could not be without any drinks. So we introduced Sidi to ‘Spritz’ (sparkling wine, aperol and soda on ice) on one of those squares of the village of Bardolino where we were staying.

Lake Garda at sunset

Next day was fully dedicated to ‘Gardaland’ which is a huge amusement park that sits right on the shore of Lake Garda. As it was a holiday weekend the queues were really long but that did not keep us from having a great time there.
Hungry and thirsty as we were we headed back to Bardolino and headed for dinner which we had at a little place off the beaten track. Still thirsty we explored the way down to the pubs and managed to drop into a place with live music. Not only that we were the only foreigners in there – no – this place featured a whole bunch of Italians dancing on the tables. As it seemed to be the way to be we jumped on the tables and joined the crowd. Of course we tasted the large variety of beer and spritz being on offer before finally finding our way back home to the hotel.

Some of us might have had a little headache the next day but nevertheless we hit the beach (or better the shore of the lake) for waking up while having cappuccino. As hanging out next to the lake just was not enough for us we got into the car and started a trip up north just along the lake. We reached the most northern village called Riva where a big mountain bike festival was going on. From there we went to Verona which is only about 25 km away and enjoyed wandering around in the arena, the ancient squares and exploring bits and pieces of this old town before returning to Lake Garda for dinner.

View from the arena on the main square

The last day of our stay was basically our journey home already via Innsbruck to Salzburg were Max and I finally split up after having droppfed of Sidi to the train to Frankfurt.

Tune I listen to while writing these lines: Róisín Murphy – Scarlet Ribbons