Lake Garda Photo Diary
We stayed on the west side of the lake in a small town called Gargnano. It is a town and comune in the provinceince of Brescia. It was perfect for what we wanted as it wasn't full of tourists ( & yes I know we are classed as tourists) but it gave that true Italian feel we wanted to experience and it didn't let us down one bit. Cobbled streets, narrow side streets, breathtaking views, family owned restaurants etc. It was all there. We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Meandro, which was a family run hotel. It was only listed as a three star hotel but deserved so much more! We arrived on that rainy Monday morning and all we wanted to do was the dump the car and cases and venture out and get stuck in with the food. And thats exactly what we did. Our room wasn't quiet ready so we drove into town but soon realised we could of walked as it was only a few mins down the road. We stuffed our faces with pizza and a selection of meats and was greeted by a huge room with a balcony that looked over the lake. I couldn't believe my eyes, we both couldn't. Waking up everyday I was excited to open the doors and blinds to reveal the beauty of the lake and the sunlight flooding our room every morning. Even if Luke would scream like a vampire and beg me to shut them.
Rise and shine, we was up at a reasonable time, my main reason was to see what food the hotel was serving for breakfast. Surprise surprise. They put on a good spread, we normally ate yogurt with some musli followed by scrambled egg with parma ham and then some fresh water melon and tea to wash it down. Some days Luke had Nutella on toast and one of the mornings we tried some Italian cakes that were served but we always tried to eat a fair amount so it would see us through till lunch time especially if we was travelling in the car and couldn't stop for food. It was so lovely how the staff that worked there got to know you and were just so friendly. After breakfast we would get ready for our day ahead of us, we would pack a beach bag (even if we wasn't planning on going to a beach) , pack water for the day, the drone and then our essentials like phones and cameras etc. We had the advantage of a car so we could take a fair bit of stuff just incase we changed our mind and wanted to sit on the beach or we found a good location to do some shooting with the drone. Having a car gave us so much freedom, it didn't add a lot to our trip was the best decision we made hiring it. You can rely on buses and use the boats as a form of transport but looking up prices they would of worked out a lot from all the traveling we wanted to do around the Lake and everywhere we went we found somewhere safe to park the car only speeding a few Euro a day on parking. To me it was a win situation. We did more of the lake than I expected and planned to do and that was down to using the car to its full potential and making the most of it.
The first full day we had in Lake Garda we visited Riva de Garda which is in the north .We drove from our hotel in Gargnano and it only took around 30 mins to arrive there. We ended up driving round the town for a bit trying to find somewhere to park and ended up leaving it in in a Sailing Bar carpark in a place called 'Lido di Riva Del Garda Srl' and took the drone with us trying to find a good place to fly it. We walked along the coast road and reached a beach, I tried to look up on google maps to see if it had a name but couldn't find one, but you cannot miss it! We flew the drone and got some amazing footage (I will insert the video link below the blogpost) This was the first time we had properly flown it not in the UK and the night before when we tried to do a test run it was having trouble connecting so I was very nervous to fly it and especially on a busy beach with a lot of people watching. But it all went well and I got some confidence to fly it in other parts that was suitable. We came across and Lidi super market and decided to buy some lunch in there to save our money. We only bought some French bread with cheese and ham, some crisps , fruit and some sweet treats for after. We had our little picnic on the beach and then had a sunbathe and relax for the rest of the afternoon.
If you have read my other posts you would be aware that Luke & I are 'foodie's'. Italian cuisine is one of our favourites so coming to Italy was like a dream come true. The lead up to the holiday all we was talking about was the food and the excitement we had. We had all our evening meals in Gargnano the town we stayed in. Only because after a long day out we would come back to our hotel have a shower and put evening wear on. Most days it was already 7:30 / 8 o'clock so traveling somewhere to another town in the car and then may not finding something was too risky in my eyes, especially when dealing with both of us who evolve our life around food and when not fed terrible moods occur. So Gargnano, what did you have to offer? The first night I let Luke do the choosing (purely because I was the one who had arranged the whole holiday so it was his turn to do a bit) so we dined in a restaurant called 'Bar Ristorante Lido' that had table views of the lake. The owner was so friendly and went the extra mile to make us feel very welcome (He even offered to take photos for of me and Luke - and ended up doing a mini photo shoot haha) One of the waiters who was younger his English was almost perfect and he helped us read the menu and suggest things to eat. We had a lovely evening and watched to sun go down and disappear over the mountains, it was truly breathtaking.
One of our days we visited 'Sirmione' which is the south of the Lake and took foreverrrr to get to. To avoid all the traffic that mounds up when driving towards the south from the West our sat nav took us the scenic route and through loads of different towns. It missed loads of the traffic but it felt like such a long time in the car. We finally arrived and it was almost impossible to get the car parked. This was the only time during the holiday when parking the car was a nightmare. Sirmione is a very popular and touristy part of the Lake so it was expected however I did think was going to be easier than that. We finally got a spot but it was a good mile from the centre of town and we had a few bags to carry. We left the car and walked around the busy town, the actual town was gorgeous if you took away all the commercial shops and large amounts of people. The castle was also a beautiful feature but the crowds of people was a bit too much for Luke and I. We aren't a fan of crowded places especially on holiday, we was both conscious of the time as our parking ticket running out and trying to factor in that we had a bit walk back to the car. We put a few more hours in the car park and did the long walk again and found the famous Jamaica Beach right on the tip of Sirmione, The large rocks provide a dry place to put your bags if you want to go for a swim in the Lake. We walked a few metres from the shoreline and placed our bags on a large rock and went for a dip in the warm water. The water felt like we was laying in a bath tub full of water, it was so relaxing, I didn't want to get out. The weather was very over cast but still very warm, we thought it might try rain at some point but we missed the rain which was good.
Day four and we visited a place called Salo. We discovered this place when traveling back from Sirmione and said we must make a visit to here. So we did, the car journey was not as long as Sirmione, in fact it was super quick and we managed to find a parking space where we didn't have to pay. This took off so much pressure as we didn't have to limit how long we was exploring a town and could lay on the beach for an afternoon. And thats exactly what we did, we explored the town, the small narrow streets, stunning wide bay and had some pizza for lunch. We returned to the car to get our beach stuff and had a sleep on the beach and a sunbathe. The idea of this trip was for us to relax but we do love to explore different towns and get around however we started to get in the habit of finding a section of beach, having a dip then sleeping for an hour or so in the afternoon. This was a perfect combination and worked out well for both of us. I wasn't going there with the idea of getting a tan and spending all day long sunbathing, so a good mix was nice. If you ever go I strongly advice you to visit Salo, it wasn't too crowed and a lot of people only visited by ferry or boat so you can easily park if you have hired a car like us.
Ice-cream eeverrrrryday. Yes thats right. We would often stuff our faces with dinner and would have to have a lil walk to help it go down before we was spoiled for choice with flavours of ice-cream. When looking through my photos I took I noticed I didn't take a single one of an ice-cream we had? How is the possible when we had one basically every day, its pretty obvious that food comes first over everything and I was too busy eating it then taking photos. But you don't need proof to see how good they were, you should just know so! One night I ate so much I had such a belly ache walking back to our hotel, I was struggling all the way home. That will teach me! Another place we visited was 'Limone Sul Garda' it was on the way to the north so it only 25 mins from our hotel which was a nice easy drive. We parked our car in a multi story carpark where we knew it was safe and got exploring as we do. We arrived at a beach but wasn't ready to plonk down for the day so we went exploring again and found a a stream with waterfalls that you could follow. We ended up following it up a fair way until we got to a point and it was directing us on long hikes and bikes routes you could take. That is where we decided we wasn't wearing appropriate clothing and it was time for lunch. After lunch we laid on the beach all sleepy eyed and also had a dip in the lake which was nice to cool off. Back to Gargnano for an evening meal like always.
When researching in Lake Garda the first thing we saw was an advert for paragliding off the top on Monte Baldo. As soon as we saw this we knew this was on our list to do while we was visiting. I didn't book before we went as I wasn't sure what day we was going to visit Malcesine so I left it for a few days into the trip. I should of booked it straight away as most of the companies we tried to book were full due to the height of the season however we got booked with a company called 'Tandem Paralgliding Peter' -tadempeter.com. We emailed him early morning and he got back to us super quick and managed to get us booked in for Saturday around 1 o 'clock. It gave us enough time to drive to the East side of the lake, get the car parked, shove some food down us and the meet the guys outside the cable cart entrance. It was funny as Luke and I got to the cable cart early and saw two men obviously waiting for people to do a paraglide. I wasn't sure if it was them and didn't like to ask, plus there are so many companies that offer this, it wasn't clear if it was them or not. So we waited it out for at least 10- 15 mins until I made Luke ask them and it turned out they were our guides. Pheww! Now I was ready for the most daring thing I have ever done.
Surprisingly I didn't feel nervous but only excited. We took the cable cart up the mountain and got to know our pilots when waiting to board the cable cart. Once we reached the summit we followed their fast pace to a big area where we was going to set off. The view was very misty on top of the mountain it didn't seem real that I was about to jump off the side of the mountain. Me and Luke departed as he went to get set up with his pilot and I got strapped in to mine. I didn't have much time to think as he instructed me to run and not to stop running, Luke was 5 mins behind me so he got to watch how it is done and also watch me nearly fall on my face! As we was taking off the wind caught the sail so we lifted off however we came back down and my legs dragged along the floor... totally embarrassing but funny at the same time. It had to be me who did something stupid. That was it, we was up in the air. It was so peaceful and I was taking in the whole atmosphere. There was so much to see and our pilot was also pointing things out. Towards the end of the flight the two pilots got us pretty close to give a little wave together before Luke's pilot did a big decent. Landing was super easy as they came in very slow and steady and all you had to was get up in a standing position and then your feet would touch the ground and you was landed. As part of the price we both got a SD card that had our flight footage on it which was really good. I couldn't believe we had just done that and I had to inform my mother that we had landed safely after she had been worrying most of that day haha. If you have a chance and your budget allows you I urge you to go and do this! It was the best experience I have had so far and now I wanna do more things like this.
After all the excitement of yesterday's paragliding experience , it was our last day and we wanted to do something relaxing and different. I suggested that we visited another Lake called 'Lake Idro'. It would take about an hour to get there but the roads were something else. There was sections that could only fit one car down there and sections where it would wind down the mountain and reveal some break taking views. It was so secluded and you didn't see many people on the way. We would climb up a mountain then would descend down it the other side, we saw another small Lake on the way and a huge man made dam that was holding all the water back. It was truly breath taking and the best choice going there. All this was before we even reached Lake Idro. It was all going great until Luke was keen to get the drone out. I had such a bad feeling about this as it was having major trouble getting a strong enough GPS signal and we was getting messages on the screen that we had never seen before. But Luke being Luke wanted to do it, so I let him. We got the drone up and started filming until the drone decided to take a fast getaway not under Luke's control over the side of the mountain. This is where my heart sank and I found myself running down a road after it shouting for Luke to get it under control. The GPS signal had lost connection so it was doing whatever it wanted and we about to loose it and all the footage... Somehow and I don't know how Luke got it under control and had to crash land it where I eventually met it after sprinting down the road after it. It didn't have much damage just a few scratches, all I was concerned about was the footage from the whole holiday and not damaging the camera on it. After that we put if straight in its box and thats where I has remained since. Too much excitement that morning, we couldn't wait to get to Lake Idro and just relax. Thats exactly what we did.
We stayed at Lake Idro till about 6 o'clock and there was only about two hours of sunlight left so we didn't want to drive back on those crazy roads in the dark. We packed our cases as we had to leave early the next morning for our flight. I was nervous about the drive as I didn't want to be late for our flight and getting the hire car back safe. Driving back to the airport we saw the sunrise which was beautiful! The sat nav was playing up and was taking us such a stupid way so we decided to ditch the sat nav and where we could get on the motor way and follow the signs which worked out best. We even got the the airport half an early and had to wait for the hire car place to open in the morning. No damage and all signed off I could relax the car was all okay. Now to just board the plane and get back to the UK. I had the best time in Italy and Lake Garda was truly a dream. We both had a lovely time and cannot stop talking about it to friends and family. Its a hidden gem and I already want to go back and relive this beauty. I couldn't fault anything on this trip, the car, the hotel, and location all worked out wonderful and all that planning certainly paid off. I cannot wait to explore more of Italy with Luke. As always I have made a video of our trip that is posted on YouTube, I shall put the link below for you if you are interested in watching it. Any questions you want to know about our trip feel free to drop me a message, I would be more than happy to answer them. Thank you for your support.
Lake Garda Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to8ZUwJ9RzI
