Malcesine

Malcesine

We met up with Roland and Sharon in Venice and drove to Verona, where we picked Mother up at the train station. Husband waited in the car while the rest of us went to look for Mother. There was a train from Milan expected to arrive in 5 minutes, and as close as we could figure it, it was the first one that Mother was likely to be on. We waited on the platform as the train pulled in, and lo and behold, Mother was indeed on it. The drive to Verona was a little over an hour. From Verona to Malcesine was another hour and a half. 

 

Husband and Mother looking down from the entry to the appartment.

Pool in back garden (what Mother and Husband are seeing)

 

                  Waterlilies and goldfish in front garden

The apartment is beautifull! Spacious, well furnished and stocked, clean, modern, and comfortable. Two balconys overlooking the lake and castle, one in Roland and Sharons room and one off the living room where we sat to have our breakfast and supper. Mother took the sofabed in the living room. Luckily since she is hard of hearing she is not easily disturbed by people tiptoeing to the bathroom at night, or the kitchen to make coffee in the morning.

Mother in living room

Most of the houses and hotels outside the village center seem to have been built in olive orchards. Casa Guarnata has a large beautiful garden, with a lot of olive trees but also a persimmon tree full of green persimmons, and a lily pond with goldfish. There is a swimming pool and workout room. Within a couple of minutes walk is the health food store, supermarket, bank, fruit and vegetable store, and several bakeries. The cable car up the mountain, the castle and the beach are also only a 5-10 minute walk away.

 

On living room balcony

View in early morning with sun touching the mountain tops.

Mount Baldo
The weather forecast is for rain next week, but it's supposed to stay sunny and hot over the weekend. So decided to go up the mountain today. Mount Baldo is over 1700 m high and the cable car takes you right up to the top.

The cable car rotates 180 degrees on its ascent to the peak

Up there you can look out over the whole northern part of the Garda lake and far into the Dolomites. In the other direktion are mountain farms and pastures and little villages nestled in the valleys. It must be an eldorado for cyclists.  

 

View from the summit: to the northwest and to the east

We hiked along the plateau, then down a steep path to where it meets a mountain road, past grazing cows,  and followed that up, past a summer farm back to the cable car. On the way we had a lunch of whole grain rolls, various sheep cheeses, including a yummy sheep brie, organic cherry tomatoes and cucumber. 

 

Grazing cows and summer farm on Mount Baldo

The mountain is famous for its rich alpine flora, and we also saw a family of marmots but couldn't get a good picture of them. Mother's new knees were up to the challenge. I wouldn't have thought that she could get down the steep path but with her sticks and help from Roland and Sharon she made it down. 

  

Silver thistle and other alpine flowers on Mount Baldo

When we got back Husband and I cooled down with a swim in the lake. It was quite refreshing. Roland cooled off in the pool. He had gotten pretty sunburnt. I had thought Californians were immune to sunburn, but apparently not he. He said the water was F**king cold! Hmm. Maybe I'm not as sissy as I thought I was.

View of the Dolomites from beach at Malcesine

Our first dinner in Malcesine we had at a restaurant that advertised that they used local food from the Mount Baldo region: I had mushroom linguini in an herb/truffel sause. It contained at least 3 kinds of mushrooms. For dessert a cup of cocao so thick the spoon could almost stand up in it.

Sirmione
The weather was still hot and sunny so we decided to go to Sirmione today to see the Roman ruins. We drove as far as Garda and parked near the harbor, but we couldn't figure out the parking meter. We tried our credit cards but nothing happened. I didn't think we had enouph change for the whole day. In the end we collected everybodys change and put it in the machine while Sharon ran to buy our ticket. Then, while Husband ran to put the parking ticket in the car, I ran to the ship. I came running up just as they pulled away the boarding plank. I held up my hand to indicate that there were 5 more passengers and they put the plank back up so we got on board at the last minute.

The first thing we did when we arrived was to make our way to the ruins of the Roman Villa at the very end of the peninsula. I always imagine the romans living in buildings made of rough stone, but in reality it seems the buildings were smooth and colorful: the walls were covered with plaster and painted with frescos, the floors decorated with mosaics.

  

Mother.                                           Dancer with Husband

We had lunch in Sirmione. Roland and Mother explored the Skaliger castle that guards the village at the narrowest part of the peninsula. We also had the ice cream that Sirmione is famous for before taking the boat back to Garda.

Mother and Sharon

The Castle in Malcesine:
Last night we had a great thunderstorm and I woke up to rain drumming against the windows. However it cleared up pretty soon and after breakfast we went into the village to do errands and try to solve Mother's money problems. This turned out to be easier said than done. s, but they kept sending her to a different bank or to the ATM. Mother had counted on using her credit card to get Euros from the bank, however her card doesn't have a pin and the ATM didn't wouldn't accept it without one. So she tried getting a cash advance the bank, but they said that could only be done in the ATM. When she tried to pay her part of the appartment and car rental by paying the balance on the appartment, the landlords card machine wouldn't accept her card. After trying, unsuccessfully to pay the balance on the appartment, her card stopped working altogether. Luckily I could lend her some Euro, but she was continuing on to Germany after Malcesine so it's a huge pain in the neck.

View of Castle on an evening walk along the lake

We've been keeping our eyes peeled for restaurants with good vegetarian options on the menu. Yesterday evening when husband and I were taking a walk along the lake shore we came across one that had several vegetarian dishes in all catagories, so when Roland suggested we have lunch somewhere near the water we suggested going there. It was a 15 minute walk from the center of town and thus the prices were not hiked up by the proximity to water. We had a table outside and had the loveliest time watching the sailboarding and parasurfing on the lake while we ate. I had homemade ravioli filled with ricotta, garlic and parsley.

 Roland & Sharon, Mother and Dancer enjoying a delicious Italian lunch

The afternoon was spent visiting the castle. It is built in 4 levels on an outcropping of rock, and contains art galleries, a natural history museum of Garda, and a Goethe room. When Goethe was travelling in this area his ship was blown off course and he came ashore in Malcesine which at that time could only be accessed from the lake. He was actually accused of being a German spy and threatened with imprisonment. The Goethe room displays exerpts of his letters and journal entries as well as sketches of the castle and surroundings.

 

 Malcesine Castle and the Goethe room.

The castle is a popular venue for weddings as we have had reason to notice. Each day since we arrived we have observed a wedding party. Today was no exception. While we were visiting the castle it was being decorated for yet another wedding and the guests began arriving. Just as we were leaving a bride in dark red satin, on the arm of her father in a matching tie arrived. There's a family with a nice dog, part greyhound in the apartment next to ours. We had a talk across our balconies one day. It is woman with her husband, daughter and son-in-law from England. Last year the daughter got married at the castle. This year they came to experience Malcesine under more relaxing conditions.

The village of Malcesine from the castle tower

The castle also has an open air theatre, though protected by a big canvas tent. Concerts are held here all through the summer. We attended a fantastic concert of Vivaldi and Marcello performed by an orchestra made up of very young musicians in their last years of university studies, playing period instruments: 4 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 bass and a cembalo. The oboe and flue soloists were also quite young (about 30 maybe). The first violinist was very flamboyant making grand gestures when he played a solo. The conductor and musical director gave the impression of being a completely modest individual, always directing the attention to his musicians rather than to himself. During the concert a wild storm was blowing. The wind buffeting the canvas and making the tent frame creak. Yet the music was such that you forgot the wind when they were playing.

Malcesine and the castle from high up on the hill

Hiking from San Michell:

Today is Roland and Sharon's last day. Since they wanted to just hang out by themselves and husband was getting all antsy from lack of training we decided to go for a walk/run up the mountain. Drove to San Michelle, the halfway station of the cable car and walked up the mountain from there.

The "paved road" going up the mountain

Mother and I walked slowly, stopping to look at the wild cyclamen and autumn crocus growing by the wayside, and to admire the view of the lake and valley from vista points along the path.

 

wild cyclamen & autumn crocus

The path was quite steep and we didn't get very far, as we had agreed with Husband to walk for an hour and then turn back. Husband,  meantime  ran all the way to the top. He saw a fox on the path, and a shepherd he met, told him that he was the first person coming up the path this morning.

Mother at a vista point

After our walk and run we felt like swimming. It had gotten hot again. However today I couldn't stand in the lake for long before my leggs got too cold for comfort. I swam in the pool instead. It was 78 degrees F and felt about the same as the lake had before the rain and wind cooled it off.

 

Dancer in the pool

Verona:
Roland and Sharon left today, and we all got up before the crack of dawn to take them to Pescheria so that they could get the first train to Milan. After seeing them off, we continued on to Verona, where the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Verona: view of Cathedral and Roman bridge

We parked at the free parking just outside the old city walls and walked from there. It was only 7 am and the first museums would open at 8:30, so the first thing on the agenda was to find a cafe where we could have breakfast. Verona makes a big deal out of being the home or Romeo and Juliet. You can visit "Juliet's house" (which really used to be a tavern) and Juliets tomb. There is noe historical evidence connecting these sites to the story, but the tourists lap it up and flock there in droves. Needless to say we stayed far away from there. Instead we walked along the river bank. Our plan was to visit two churches: the Romanesque Cathedral and the Gothic Basilica Santa Anastasia, as well as the Roman bridge, theatre and archaeology museum.

 

Roman theatre ruins and Jesuit monastery garden

When we got to the Cathedral it wasn't open yet and there were services going on. Next we crossed the Roman bridge, the only one still standing of the 3 from Roman times. It was hard to get a feel for the theatre ruins as they perform Shakespeare there in the summer (Romeo and Juliet of course) and the stage stuff covers up a lot of the area. The archaeological museum is in a deserted Jesuit monastery. the pieces of statuary, mosaic ect were interresting, but it was sad to see the ruined frescoes that had once adorned the refectory. At one time buildings covered the whole theatre. The person who discovered the ruins bought the whole area, and tore most of the buildings down to excavate the theatre. The monastery still sits on part of the roman theatre. When we got to the Santa Anastasia Basilica it was open for visitors. Nevertheless a service was going on effectively closing the entrance to all the most interresting chapels.  

The Coloseum in Verona

Since we had had such bad luck with the churches we decided to visit the Coloseum, third largest in Italy and very well preserved as it has been taken care of since the 1500's. The corridors and cells where the wild animals and prisoners were kept are mostly intact. Unfortunatly the opera season was over: apparently the acoustics are excellent and one can enjoy open air opera performances there all summer. It must be quite an experience! 

Chiesa di San Lorenzo 

It was still a little early for lunch and husband was tired. He just wanted to sit on a park bench and rest. Mother and I still wanted to explore churches. There were a couple smaller ones close by. At the first we found all the pictures and statues covered with plastic, building materials stacked on the floor, scaffolding along the walls, dust everywhere. We wandered around looking bemused when a worker came to us saying "chiuso!" - closed. For restaurations. Across the street was the entrance to one of Veronas oldest churches, built on the ruins of a roman building. It was a fantastic little church with faded old frescos, a high cieling and gallery with roman arches. All the walls built in that style with alternating layers of red brick and white stone. 

Kitchen of restaurant in Verona

It was lunch time when we got back and we found a nice place on a side street, where we could sit outside, with a waitress so cheerful it seemed that waiting on tables must be the high point of her day.

Limone:
Our last day in Malcesine. I got my hair cut this morning. Instead of one person taking care of a customer from beginning to end like in the USA or in Norway, here there was the hairdresser and an assistant - whose hair was a dreadfull blue color - taking care of 3 customers simultaneaously. The assistant washes and blowdries while the hairdresser does the actual cutting and styling. It turned out very nice and I paid half of what I would have paid in Norway. 

Dancer's new haircut

We then took the boat across to Limone. There we wandered through the narrow alleys hugging the cliff wall until we found the citrus garden museum. The garden i built with stone walls and pillars, earth is filled in and the trees planted. Wooden frames hold wood roofing that can be laid on them when there is danger of frost. The irrigation too, was fascinating. Though this is a traditional way to grow lemons in this area (even Goethe describes it from his visit) the museum had oranges, grapefruit, quamquats, tangerines etc as well.

The Limonaia

The little church was quite nice, though they were playing musack from the sound system. There is even a chapel to a local saint, a man who devoted his life to charity and missionary work in Afrika and who has since been sainted. Instead of a statue or picture of him the font in which he was baptized is in his chapel.

Limone from the limonaia

We had brought a picnic lunch, but had coffee and desert at a cafe in Limone. Mother had their lemon mousse cake, I had the tiramisu - the best so far on this trip!