Drove west from Ortesei toward the northern tip of Lake Garda, the largest lake of the northern Italy lakes. We drove through wine areas as the mountains became hills. Along the way, we stopped at a tiny medieval town called Canale that was deserted until the 1960s when artists started moving in for inexpensive housing. Today it has a few galleries and pubs mixed in with some homes created in renovated stone buildings.
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| wineries |
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| medieval Canale |
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| town of Canale |
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| an apartment-drying corn |
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| arches and plaques |
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| interesting restroom |
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| helping local economy |
And finally, we get to Riva del Garda. We stayed at a family villa that rents out some of the rooms. Lovely grounds, but the weather changed and our time at Riva was the only rain for our whole trip.
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| looking at villa from yard |
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| pool too cold! |
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| breakfast by Turk! |
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| eggs, cheese, veggies, peach, yogurt |
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| Riva from the lake - on our steamer paddleboat |
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| windsailers everywhere....on a weekday! |
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| our boat |
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| town of Malcesine with castle - of course |
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| great pizza chef! |
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| the castle |
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| view from castle wall |
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| castle wedding |
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| our boat on Garda |
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| see the road cut into the side? |
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| well dressed citizen of Riva |
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| vegetarian dinner |
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| our bathroom wall in apt |
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| on road to Verona - looking for figs |
After 2 nights, we headed to Verona to the southeast of Riva. Along the drive through farmland and marble quarries we stopped in Spiazzi to see the Santuario Madonna della Corona, a church built on a thin ledge of the mountainside of Mount Baldo 2000 ft above sea level. A church as been on this site since the 1500s. Getting to the church one must hike down (then up to leave) for almost an hour along a mountain path.
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| church in Spiazzi |
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| nestled in the mountain |
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| see the trail down |
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