Farnsniente

Our last Italian city: Sirmione

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in
📍 Sirmione, Italy

Photos

Trip index

Summary

Enjoyed the view and breakfast. Drove along the lake to Riva del Garda at the far north end for a stroll to the beautiful III November piazza and coffee. We debated driving back down the western coast but chose the inland autostrada in the interest of speed. Turned out to be a gorgeous route through Adige River valley below high green hills and cliffs. Tons of vineyards and olive orchards. Arrived at Sirmione, a narrow spit of land jutting in Lake Garda’s southern end, to find 1.5 million tourists (like us). With difficulty we found parking and our hotel in the old quarter. Nice room with balcony overlooking the lake. Had a very late lunch then drove 40 minutes to catch our scheduled sunset boat tour.

Details

66° and clear blue skies when we wake. It’s still a bit hazy, but pretty. The expected high today is 81°. Cool for a Texan but 16° warmer than usual here, so the locals would be OK with it being a lot cooler. 

For us it’s yet another travel day. We head south to the bottom of Lake Garda, to Sirmione. ChatGPT confirms for us that Garda, and all these major Italian lakes, were carved by glaciers from the Alps.  Sirmione is where the glacier stopped, meaning the area is shaped by the earth and rocks the glaciers were pushing. The moraines. It’ll be interesting seeing the contrasts of the two regions. 

We have breakfast downstairs, where we had dinner last night. There are groupings of offerings, “stations” I’m told, all around. This is by far the most impressive of all our breakfasts of the trip. It may be the most expensive too, since I now feel I need a juice extraction machine. We saw one before but I didn’t get to use it. Here I combine a carrot, apple, ginger, and celery into a delicious (and I hope healthy) elixir. 

Packed, we check out and load up the car. Sirmione is south but we’re headed north. At the top of Lake Garda is Riva Del Garda, supposedly an extremely appealing town. We’re into those. That’s where we’re headed.

The drive north is again beautiful. As it’s earlier in the day and since we’re closer, the surrounding mountains are in sharper focus. Being here right after a good rain must be amazing. 

As we get into Riva Del Garda proper we note that bike rental shops are everywhere, as are bicyclists. This is an outdoor person’s paradise (as well as being damn good looking). Cool old buildings in great repair and striking mountains all around. Where it is a little flat it’s either a bike path or vines of grapes for making wine. Is this a great region or what?

For our return south, we debate on whether to take the more scenic western coast drive down (longer and slower, great views, but occasionally scary) or the faster eastern inland autoroute route. As the driver I say we’re going the autoroute and man, is it surprisingly gorgeous. Besides the road all you have to look at are very striking mountain ranges or oceans of hyper-green vineyards. We do not regret this decision one bit. 

On the outskirts of Sirmione we shop at a super big grocery store/hypermart for wine, toiletries you can only get here and suitcase gifts. Continuing on to our hotel we realize this place has one gazillion tourists a day and very little parking. The credo is “come by public transport, leave your car at home”. Whoops! 

We pull over and consult the messages from the hotel I’ve been ignoring. Car parking? Do we want it? Why yes, yes we do. It’s not free but at least we can park (and they’ll shuttle our luggage to our room). 

Walking to our hotel we can better believe the world currently has 8.3 billion people. It seems many of them are here! Our room? It’s nice, quiet, overlooks the water, and has a population of just two. Yay! 

We lunch nearby. I get the quintessential Italian pizza I’ve been craving. We walk some more and soon it’s time to get to the sunset cruise we paid for. To where do we have to drive? 45 minute drive?? What? And the boat is going to take us over to see our hotel? Well that was a bit of an error. 

In the end we have a great time. There is another young-ish couple, Anya and Peter from Germany. They’re good fun and we chat the whole time. I participate to the extent my limited hearing and the loud boat motor noise allows. The outing includes a bottle of prosecco and lots of quality sliced meats and cheeses. We enjoy our time. 

Photos

We wake to clearer, but not crystal clear views. Nonetheless Karen camps outside, in the cool of the morning, checking the news from the states.
Like a geriatric advent calendar, each day I find my little plastic pouch of pills for that day. It’s not the countdown to Christmas, but I see fewer and fewer full pill pouches. I think that means our trip is winding down. 🙁
All of the options at breakfast, at the many stations, raised my spirits. They have a juicing station where I noisily make a carrot-ginger-apple-celery-something-else glass of yumminess.
We thought we’d left all of the influencers over in Stresa or Bellagio, but apparently one fallowed us here. She has an Apple MagSafe suction cup arrangement to keep her iPhone secure to the glass while she adjusts her looks.
We miss the paragliders silently drifting way up high. They can only fly when the cable car is running, which it isn’t yet. I guess there’s nothing for them to do but go and do some parasailing on the lake. These are come crazy people.
We load up the car and finally check out whether the close brush with death, er with that bush on the drive over here left any lasting impressions on the car. Yes but it’s just a flesh wound. We’re hopeful that Hertz will look past these minor blemishes. They’ll buff out easily, we’re sure. (Finger’s crossed!)
On the drive north we go through some of the semi-tunnels, where you’re under ground, but there are windows so you don’t lose your view of the pretty lake.
We’re very impressed by Riva del Garda. It’s a very cool city with lots to investigate. The main businesses? Bike rental. This is an active person’s Mecca here.
We enjoy the downtown piazza and boat basin while downing yet another cup of Italian Joe. You can never be too thin or have too much coffee, I say.
We can see the funicular. It doesn’t go up very far. What it lacks in design it makes up for in lack of capacity. We give is a pass (this time).
On our drive south we pass this interesting geological occurrence. Apparently something got pushed up while something else got left behind, or visa-versa. Anyway, it’s pretty striking!
For the Italy part of the trip I have some boxes that I was really hoping to check off. A delicious pizza diavolo is on that list and this one checked that box. Yum!
Another box that had to be checked was to be “on the water” since we’re near so many lakes. We sign up for a sunset boat ride around the Sirmione spit of land (where we’re staying). The funny part? The boat basin for this is a 45 minute drive away! (and back). Oh well.
At the furthest point of our boat ride we look over and say “hey, there’s our hotel, there’s our room”. We’ll see you again in a couple of hours, after the rest of our boat ride and the 45 minute drive ‘home’.
The “Old Castle” (ruins now) and Jamaica Beach. You have to have something to show to the boaters.
In addition to the two of us we had Peter and Anya with us, a delightful young couple from Germany. We gabbed the whole time. They were a lot of fun.
Dinner, included in the price of admission for the sunset cruise, is thinly sliced Italian meats, hunks of yummy cheese, and a bottle of prosecco for the four of us. It was all quite good. And bread. Well, packaged bread sticks.
Karen has many loves but one of them is a good sunset. This one’s a bit sloppy, but when your feet are regularly getting slapped with cold water, what else can you do but smile.
Back home, it’s late but there are sill a gajillion tourists coming and going, to the backdrop of the “new” castle.