Adventures of Lake Garda

The morning we woke up in the hotel was perfect...the shades were down so it was dark, the air conditioner made the room cool, and we slept in just a little bit. I was very much looking forward to breakfast to see if it was a bust or a nice surprise! Sure enough, we went downstairs to check it out and it was awesome! They had juice, water, coffee, meats and cheeses for sandwiches, fresh fruit, yogurt, and an assortment of jams. It was awesome! While we were feasting, another front desk lady came up to our table and asked if we could move our car because it was blocking other cars from leaving the hotel. We had to leave our breakfast for a few minutes and hope it was there when we got back. After we figured out that our parking brake was still not working, we found another flat spot that we could park while we got ready to leave the hotel. While we were getting ready for the day, we kept going out on the patio to see the amazing view. I could have sat out there all day. There was a nice breeze coming from the lake and it was cooler outside than it was in our room. We had seen a hotel online that said the air conditioner worked only at night so we think that is why our cooler wouldn't work in the morning and shut off during the night. It made the room really hot while getting ready to leave! After we checked out, we were on our way back to Peschiera to go look around the shops near the water. We tried to stop in the small towns on our way there but there was nowhere to park! There aren't many places to park and there were a lot of people at the beach and going to church. When we arrived in Peschiera, we walked around the pier and I put my feet in the water. I wanted to jump in so bad! We walked around to the small shops while eating a cherry icee thing to cool us off. We found a neat shop that had bottles shaped like the lake and filled with limoncello. After looking at all the shops, we were on our way to Sirmione! It is a small town on a peninsula with an old castle surrounding the outer banks of the lake. Wow, was it amazing to see. It was by far the most beautiful place we had been to all weekend. We stopped for lunch at a place that said they had air conditioning but it was more like a large fan in the middle of the restaurant...not what we had in mind. I had a caprise salad and some french fries and Natalie tried their pumpkin ravioli. Everything was really good and we were glad we stopped and ate there. We have noticed that we have to remind ourselves to eat because you forget when you are trying to find places and see new things. Also, the heat doesn't help...it is so hot that all that sounds good are cold drinks and lots of water! Before we left Sirmione, we had to find a gas station. We needed a specific kind of gas for our car and it wasn't advertised that any of the gas stations had it on their signs. We really didn't want to put the wrong gas in the car so I went to ask a man what kind we needed. After a struggle for him to understand what I was saying and for me, I finally figured out what pump we needed and how to work the money machine. You don't go into a gas station and pay cash to a person. Instead, the gas stations usually don't have attendants so you have to use cash at a machine and just estimate how much gas you think is needed. After figuring that out for a bit, we were on our way to Mantova! It was about an hour from Sirmione. We had a hard time trying to find where we were because I accidentally kept taking the wrong roads to the city center. We ended up at a place called Piazza Te that looked like an old villa with a HUGE courtyard. We tried to go in but it was 13 euro so we decided to skip it and try to go find the city center instead. After a little bit of searching, we finally parked the car and headed towards what we thought was the right way to go. We found a neat theater called Teatro Bibiene that was built in the 1700's. Mozart wrote to his father and said that he had found the most beautiful theater in the world when we was there! I agree, it was an awesome find! We had a rough map of where certain landmarks were and we pretty much found them all. There were many piazzas and churches to see and Palazzo Ducale to walk through. We decided that if we wanted to have enough time to make it to Vallegio sul Mincio for tortellini, we had to leave soon. When we arrived there, we still couldn't find a place to go that was open!!! It was so frustrating because all we wanted to do was eat and relax but there were no restaurants at all! We finally drove up to a place that looked open but he said the restaurant was closed. I asked him if there were ANY restaurants around here that were open and that had tortellini and he was very nice and offered us a map. He told us to head to the next town over to Borghetto where they had many nice restaurants on the water that would definitely be open. I was super excited that we were going to actually find a place to eat! He was right, it wasn't too far to go and it was open! Risterante San Marco was right on the river with a small castle to the side. We sat on the patio overlooking the river and it was awesome! We ate some delicious tortellini and then it was time to head back home. We finally arrived home after two hours or so of driving. We made it home after our long weekend! We were excited to get to sleep and to figure out what was next for tomorrow. I have t babysit the girls during the day but then the afternoons are usually ours to go away and drive wherever we want. We decided that tomorrow morning we could go to the market with the girls and then Venice in the afternoon! Wow, what a jam packed day we are going to have!