Monday
Mum off not much doing, first day back from Cornwall and all...lots of sleep and laundry really.
Tuesday
Auntie christines for the day, we baked cookies (lovely) and watched some films, another nicely low key day. We had lunch out of course, which is always nice, this week the Flowerpot Cafe.
Wednesday
Mum off again today, cinema trip to see the new Diary of a wimpy kid film, The Long Haul. The cast has changed from what we would call the classic line up (no doubt as they are all grown ups now). So it wasn't quite as good as the previous films but there were still plenty of funny bits and we enjoyed it. Lunch was a McDonalds, and of course I had to have a mcflurry now i've been made aware of their existance. We sent Ned off home and carried on around town a bit doing a bit of girls shopping.
Thursday
KD gym camp day today, which means a lie in and then lots of cool activities. We had a lot of races and obstacle course based stuff which I had great success at with a good lot of wins in the bag.
Friday
Today it was Anne and Mike for company. We went to see an outdoor theatre production of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. We took a picnic and had a lovely day outside. I think we all agreed ot wasn't the best production ever but we certainly enjoyed it.
Early night needed tonight.....
Saturday
As it was a travel day. Up early and off to Stansted Airport, ultimate destination....Lake Garda.
It was a bit later in the year than normal for our European jaunt, all Ned;'s fault with his school trip to France back in the May half term.
We were also slumming it by flying Ryanair, very unusual indeed:
But despite Mum and Dad's reservations it was really good. Nice new plane, comfy seats and it wasn't delayed or anything. We also had great fun mocking the seat back safety diagrams, that depicted no washing machines being allowed on board and no burgers on the emergency escape slide amongst other things.
It was one of those times when you reach the plane door and the warmth hits you....lovely.
We were soon on the road in our hire car (rather disappointingly a Nissan Qashqai, with a number of 'remodelled' features) making our way along an Italian motorway and scoffing a picnic. It didn't take long to reach our camp site and we waited to check in with a cold drink...it was very warm.
Time to check out our accommodation and begin negotiations about the top bunk, always a tense time.
Then off to the pool complex....the slides were fantastic and it was lovely to cool off.
The only problem was we had no supplies, so a supermarket trip was called for. Italian supermarkets shut later than those at home on a Saturday night so it was a pretty fruitless task. We ended up in what must have been the most brightly lit out of town shopping centre that I suspect may well have been visible from space eating McDonalds.....oh dear.
Still, there was some entertainment to be had watching the locals having an al fresco line dancing event in the car park:
Sunday
Shopping trip take two, much more successful. With our fridge full we were free to explore a bit, there were vineyards everywhere:
Then back to the pool, complete with inflatable Unicorn that had miraculously made it's way from England with us:
We found this rather amusingly named beer in the supermarket:
Ned drank most of it, but I had a couple of sips....there'll be video evidence of my reaction to it later on I'm sure....
We rounded out the day with a good few games of cards on the deck.
Monday
We'd been here a day and a half and not even set eyes on the Lake, time to remedy that with a lake tour.
We packed up a picnic and made our way up the East side, past the theme parks and campsites and traffic until it all got a bit calmer and the natural beauty took over. It was lovely with the still water and the mountains jutting up. It was so wide you could barely see to the other side and it looked more like the sea. We found a place to park up and broke the supplies out for a spot of lunch:
It would have been rude not to go for a dip wouldn't it? The water was lovely, not too cold, not too warm and we splashed about for a while, Mum stayed in for ages.
There was plenty to explore and poke at with my pokey stick I came across:
We eventually decided to dry off and get dressed and continue North, with the mountains getting higher and the lake itself getting narrower. The town at the top of the lake, Riva Del Garda was seemingly a rather upmarket sort of place, crawling with mountainbikers, Dad's eyes were out on stalks eyeing up their bikes.
The weather was closing in a bit, with rain and cloud billowing over the looming mountains so we carried on, beginning the journey back down the East side.
There were masses of tunnels we had to go through, cutting through the mountains, some of them were really long too. I loved it, although Ned was disappointed that revving the Nissan in such a confined space didn't produce a Top-Gear-esque roar he might have hoped for.
I needed a toilet stop, so we happened to pull in at Limone. We knew it must have been Limone as there were ceramic lemons adorning most of the towns doorways. Once we had seen to our business it was time to sample another ice cream:
Before surveying the inflatables on offer for use in the campsite pool. One Lilo purchased to compliment the Unicorn and a large ring....quite the quiver of equipment to cover all eventualities.
We wandered about, admiring the speedboats moored up:
Here we are, revelling in the unity of Europe, prior to brexit:
Then made our way back to the car and headed southwards again to complete our loop of the lake.
We made it back in time for a quick bite to eat before heading out for the campsite Foam party. None of us had to been to such an event before......I loved it! Massive foam cannon shooting over the poolside area and music playing...brilliant. I stayed until the bitter end, when most people had started to drift off, leaving masses of foam for Dad and I to hide in. Video to follow.....
Tuessday
We decided to explore the river Minicio by bike, ultimate destination Peschiera Del Garda, at the southern most tip of the lake. Ned had an ulterior motive, he'd spotted an inflatable surfboard at one of the shops we'd seen on the way through in the car earlier in the week. We hired bikes, got over the shock of how shoddy they were compared to our bikes at home and set off along the eastern bank of the river. It was lovely in the sunshine making our way along the path enjoying the river setting. There were a lot of fishermen who didn't seem over friendly. We made our way the 6 km's until we got to a a rather busy looking dual carriageway, full of on oncoming traffic. It didn't look great for cycling. We had no choice but to backtrack past all the fisherman, back to the campsite to cross the river and ride back up the other side. This is when we noticed the 'No cycling during fishing season' signs.....oops, no wonder they weren't exactly pleased to see us. Especially for the second time.
We cycled the 6km's back to the campsite, then on a little bit before crossing to the western bank and riding 6km's back again to Peschiera. It was much nicer on the other side of the river, shaded under the trees and without the nasty dual carriageway at the end. In fact it turned into a bit of a moat, around a walled part of the town. We rode through the gatehouse, parked up the bikes and had some well earned lunch:
We had a wander around, taking in the sights:
Vaguely heading towards where we hoped Ned's inflatable shop would be. We were lucky and found it quite easily, bought the surfboard and returned to the bikes:
And here we are with our fresh whips (as Ned would say):
We arrived back at the campsite in great need of a post ride cool down ice cream:
And then a trip to the pool, the inflatable surfboard was great.....as long as the splashdown area was clear.....it carried some serious momentum:
Wednesday
The supermarket on site had brilliant kids shopping trolleys, despite me maybe being a little bit too old for them, I couldn't resist using one for the breakfast stuff:
We had a lazy day by the pool today, why not? The weather was lovely, the pool was fun and we had a load of inflatables to utilise.
We did take a trip up the lake again in the evening. We'd seen a pontoon on our day trip earlier in the week and wanted to go and have a dive off it:
It was fantastic, I loved it, there will be some video later i'm sure.
We stayed ntil the sun went down behind the mountains:
Thursday
We took a drive down to Sirmionie in the morning. In all honesty we had left it a bit late and the traffic police were stopping anyone else drive very far down as all the carparks were full. We found the closest carpark we could and then used our one hour to walk as far as we could down the spit of land. We never made it to the castle itself:
But we did enjoy creating some rather dubious rear window art on the Nissan:
We headed back to camp and had a go at their go-ape course:
It looked so cool with zip lines across the pool and everything. We'd been watching it all week and it looked great fun as everyone in the pool soaked the zip wirers as they zoomed over the water.
Unfortunately though we were behind a rather fearful Italian boy......he took ages to be convinced to take on the first zipwire and seeing as we were all clipped to the safety wire we had no choice vpbut to follow him.
He was painfully slow and it turns out he was called Mario which we gleaned from his parents helpful 'encouragement' from the ground.
Ned decided to take a rest:
We we were certainly getting our moneys worth in terms of time taken!
The course itself went over the tops of the poolside sun loungers and parasols:
Mario wasn't getting any better at it and the man that ran the course had to rescue him and abseil him down from the tree to the ground.....oh dear.
Still, we cracked on:
But by the time we took on the final zipwire it had been so long since anyone had gone on it due to super Mario's slow progress that the water pistol brigade had given up and we didn't get a sniff of a soaking!
Our drinking continued:
That stuff as horrible. Even worse than the DAB.
Ned and Dad had noticed people emptying the box that you were supposed to return your clubs and balls to once you'd finished crazy golf (after the hut had closed in the evening).
So once it was all closed up we helped ourselves and had a round:
It was okay, but the course wasn't the best and Dad totally ruined it by getting far too many hole in ones.
Friday
Our last full day, and despite the forecast saying it wasn't going to be that nice....it was!
A day at the pool where Ned finally cracked stand up surfing the long two lane slide on a lilo, top to bottom to a round of thunderous applause and whistles. He'd also made friends with an Italian boy called Samuel and they got on like a house on fire despite the language barrier.
This left mum and dad at my disposal, I loved having time with Mum in the pool and Dad and I cracked me standing on his shoulders no handed. The Lifeguards only seemed bothered about people trying to walk up the slides and keeping the sun beds nicely in line leaving us free to lark about as much as we liked.
We ordered pizza for tea and had it delivered by a man on his golf cart:
Saturday
Time to go home, bags packed and car loaded up:
As we drove along the motorway the bright morning sunshine began to get pushed out by ever darkening clouds...it got dark, like proper dark. I mean, us English are used to heavy rain filled skies but this was next level, like when you see a total eclipse on the news.
The sky was lit with lightning streaking across the sky but it took a while for the rain to kick in. Once it did, it was unbelievably heavy. So heavy there was a good six inches of standing water on the motorway and the cars were creating a wake. A lot of the locals parked up under bridges to take refuge but we carried on at a snails pace, wipers going as fast as they could go, still getting overtaken by lunatic German's in the outside lanes. It didn't let up for ages and Mum warned us the flight would be seriously delayed.
We thought it was all great fun though, whooping with delight from the back seats.
It did finally ease up, just as we pulled off the motorway at the airport turning, even the dual carriageway in was flooded:
I think Dad was very relieved we had made it back to drop the car off safe and well.
We got checked in, and despite the departure lounge being flooded with rain that had obviously run off the runways the plane departed only half an hour late.
When we landed back in Stansted it was lovely and warm and sunny, a marked improvement over Italy, temporarily at least.
Sunday
A nice lay in, followed by a visit from Nate, Joel and Alan, hadn't seen them for a while so that was nice.....except for the Nerf bullet in the eye, thanks to Nate.
It was Lilly's birthday sleepover in the afternoon....a full on return from holiday. She had ladies in to do hair and make up and we had a great time. Lily and I managed to stay up the latest......
