Italian Lakes and Mountains

Ok, so we did stay the extra night in Rimini! We woke up in the morning looked at each other and decided that there was another day of scrabble under our beach umbrella to be had. Typically when we spoke to the hotel about staying another night the rate magically went up....something like "oh today is the start of our high season rates so its an extra 20 euros". I don't believe them (it was a wednesday?) but c'est la vie...we stayed!

We then headed up to Salo in the beautiful Lake Garda and wandered around for the afternoon. It was really really hot and after trying to keep walking we ended up on the pebble beach and swimming instead (those pebbles are really uncomfortable by the way!!). The scenery on the Lake is incredible...just wish we had a speed boat and about a million euros and we could set ourselves up there quite well! Ah well, no such luck. The most extravagent thing I had was a meringue flavoured gelato...very nice!

We did however find a very cool way of having dinner....found a small funky wine bar and when we ordered our drinks a plate of canapes and bowl of olives arrived....and with every drink more kept arriving. This is my style of bar! The wine was locally made and delicious...not expensive either so all in all a very cheap night out.

In the morning we drove up the west side of the Lake and wandered around a few spots before heading towards the Dolomites. Stopped in an incredible place on the side of a mountain for lunch with views over the whole valley...steve had mushroom risotto and I had a penne ragu. We then drove on tiny winding roads towards a tiny place in the middle of nowhere where we stopped for a night. We followed signs for a walk to a Lake but got lost and then a thunder storm started so we decided to run back to the hotel up a mega hill of death. It was like one of those runs that Sam, Pernille, Alex and I did in Boot Camp. Agghh!!!

It has to be said that one thing that Italians are really rubbish at is signs. Their road signs are cack, and there walking signs are sometimes there, and then sometimes just disappear. We have been lost quite a few times...and in my role as navigator Stephen has been giving me some grief!! Ah well.

Dinner this night was quite amusing....they actually forgot about us in the restaurant (all the staff disappeared and we were the last there). To compensate I was promised local raspberrries in red wine (at which point I thought this was going to be some delicious new Italian dish of sauteed berries in rich wine sauce). Oh no, literally a bowl of raspberries with normal red wine poured over them. Too funny.