Lake Garda Holiday

22nd to 30th August 2005

We spent 8 days in Lake Garda, staying at an apartment in Garda town, walking distance to the town centre and ferry.
We had a well balanced diet of children attractions and medieval towns to explore. And pizza. Here's some of our pics and videos.

	Day 1: We arrived with time to walk into Garda town for a look around and dinner. Our apartment block had a path to the town centre which avoided the road which made for a relaxing stroll. It was great not having to use the car every evening to eat out.
	Day 2: We went to Parco Natura Viva - a drive-through safari park with play area. Robert and Emily enjoyed the close up views of the animals (but we weren't so keen on the deliberate agitation of the lions by one particularly unpleasant warden).
	Day 3: We visited Sirmione - a medieval town on a peninsula on the south side of Lake Garda. The castle provided great views of the town and lakeside. Robert and Emily loved climbing the (many) stairwells to reach the top ramparts, and exploring every alcove.
	Day 4: We went to Gardaland - Italy's biggest themepark. The weather was great but the long queues were very tiring. Robert and Emily managed one hour long queue but after that we sought out rides with very short queues. The ice show was a lot of fun and a good antidote to lack of shade outside.
	Day 5 (Part I): We went north by ferry, to Malcesine. Malcesine is on the east side of the lake, with a famous rotating cable car going up to Monte Baldo.
	Day 5 (Part II): From Malcesine we caught the ferry across to Limone, on the west side. The town of Limone is set against an incredible curtain of mountain. The north end of the lake is much more rugged and mountainous.
	Day 6: We visited Verona - the nearest big town to Garda. The highlight was the amphitheatre which is still in use for opera. Outside and inside of the amphitheatre lay giant props from a recent performance - sphinxes, decapitated soldiers and other bizarre things.
	Day 7: We went north again, by car, to Riva Del Garda. This town had a much more touristy feel, but being right at the top of the lake, was set in beautiful surroundings.
	Day 8: We went to Molina - a steep valley region with multiple waterfalls. The maintained park area has a series of trails of different lengths around the waterfalls. Although it was a dry day, the previous day's rain made the paths so slippery that Robert and Emily struggled to stay upright and made it exhausting for them (on top of the really steep climbs). To distract them from exhaustion on the climb back up to the car we counted lizards - lots of them...
	Miscellaneous photos: the flight out, the beautiful swimming pool we had access to, the Fiat Multipla hire car (great for holidays), the apartment block gardens, etc, etc.

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