Malcesine, Italy

Goodbye Venice, hello Lake Garda. As planned, the alarm went off at 6am, and was ignored! Up at 8.30 for brekky and packing time, again. Breakfast in this place is pretty diabolical, so didn’t linger, but went back for a last look around and photo op. Besides brekky our hotel has been really good, if a little small as is typical for most hotels in Italy with space at a premium. We would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to stay in Venice on a bit of a budget. No lift was a bummer, having to walk up and down four flights of stairs, but we hardly spent anytime in our room, so no big deal. Bags packed we headed off to the vaporetta back to the train station, and on to Venezia station to get our hire car. The train station was a shambles as the fast ticket machines were all down, and the ticket booth queue was massive, but luckily found the water taxi booth who sold regional tix, so all good. Our last car, a 1.2 litre Polo was a load of junk, so we were looking forward to something a little better to move us around, until we saw our chariot for the last leg of our journey. The SAME Polo awaited us! Yep, the same car we paid an extra days rent on because we were 1 hour late getting it back has been sitting in the shed waiting for us to return, three days later!!! At least we didn’t have to rearrange the seating positions! So I started pedalling, and off we went to Verona for a look around, but not before our gps tried to send us south, when we needed to go north(ish). The GPS really doesn’t like us! We got to Verona in about 90 minutes and looked around for a couple of hours. We checked out the Arena, the ancient amphitheatre built by the Romans, and home to a summer season of opera which must be spectacular in this most unique setting. Next we strolled down to the main piazza, then on to the main tourist sight in town, Juliet’s balcony. The power of storytelling should never be underestimated. Every year hundreds of thousands trek to Verona to see the balcony where Juliet stood while Romeo declared his love. No one cares that it’s very possible that Romeo and Juliet were only figments of Shakespeare’s imagination. The walls are covered in declarations of love, as is a wall of padlocks. The shops are making a killing selling all sorts of rubbish all in the name of love. The place was packed with people all trying to have their photo taken with the statue of Juliet, who’s right boob is worn down as it is believed by rubbing it your life will be lovingly fulfilled. Oh……and pigs fly! Still must have sucked us in, as we were there with the crowds, sans breast rubbing! The balcony is quite nice too. Verona looks lovely, and deserves more time than we gave it but Lake Garda awaits. 60 minutes later we arrived at our last hotel in Italy, in Malcesine on Lake Garda. A lovely spot right on the lake with Mount Balco behind, and a beautiful castle on the waterfront, all to be explored tomorrow.