July 7, 2012
Greeting Garda: Martarello - Lazise
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
THERE IS always something wrong with paradise. Here we are, bowling along a bike road that couldn't be bettered, hearing ourselves grumble in a not wholly convincing way that we're not seeing real Italy. Because our road, of course, is a permanent bypass. It's the main highway to our left that passes through the villages and towns. And yet, would we rather be over there with the cars and trucks? No, we wouldn't.
Some people are impossible to please, aren't they?
Today we said farewell to apples and greeted vines. They grow on Y-shaped structures in which the working part of the vine forms a canopy to catch the greatest sun. I don't take much interest in wine and grapes but I don't recall that being the way at home. I also noticed that Italian growers hadn't adopted the French custom of growing a rose at the end of every fourth or fifth row. A rose dies of the same infections as a vine but more quickly, so a farmer has a day or two in which to do something.
We also said goodbye to the main path, because we forked to the right, past an outdoor vélodrome and over a minor col to see Lake Garda. A small boy was riding the col with his father. When I say small, I mean he was seven and that he was on a miniature racing bike which, for all its tininess and despite having the saddle down against the top tube, forced his legs straight and his hips into a wobble.
Nevertheless he got to the top of the climb and I hoped his father would take his picture at the sign. But he didn't and I like to think the boy will berate him for it when he's older.
We rolled down the other side, separate from the road traffic and going faster, and reached the long, long Garda lake by a road closed to through traffic. It formed a landmark on our journey.
Lake Garda is 70km long, thinner in the north than in the south, where the surrounding hills are shallower. A road runs along the side on which we arrived but this is the weekend, a sunny weekend with heavy traffic, and we had trouble imagining the fun we'd have in the numerous tunnels.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
And then the woman in the tourist office came up with the answer.
"You could always take the water bus," she said. A water bus... a boat that zigzags from one shore to the other and drops off and picks up at each stop.
And so it was that we saw the lake from its most beautiful aspect, from the lake itself, and camped right beside the water to fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 2 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |