Garda to Prato allo Stelvio

After watching a couple of hundred of the Mille Miglia entries do ceremonial bog laps of the old town, we left Brescia in the early evening, crossing over to the shores of Lake Garda where we found a camping ground at Villa Garuti in Padenghe with a plain but pleasant restaurant attached. During dinner, we had a long conversation with the proprietors who were thrilled to find that we were from Australia, assuring us that it was the best country in the world in which to live, according to their relatives who lived somewhere in Melbourne.

After our usual brisk trot across the camping ground for our ablutions and our well practiced packing up routine, we had a breakfast overlooking the small port of Padenghe. It was nice to notice a couple of designs on which I had worked all those years ago. Our midmorning coffee was taken at Toscolano Maderno, looking out over the idyllic lake, feeling at peace with the world and quietly hoping that we might be taken for George Clooney-like film stars – unsurprisingly, we weren’t.

 

We wended our way up the west side of the lake along a fascinating road through an interminable series of galleries and tunnels hewn in the rock cut of the imposing cliffs which soar above the lake. Arriving in the pretty little town of Riva del Garda, it was interesting to reflect that the last time I had been here, it was under a metre of snow. An obliging butcher provided us with some tasty panini and boutique beers before we continued up into the mountains above the lake. We had our lunch on the shores of Lago di Ledro under the very watchful eyes of a half dozen ducks.

Surrounded by the majestic Brenta group of the Western Dolomites, we continued north up the Sarca valley, past the ski resort of Madonna di Campiglio, eventually dropping into the Adige valley above Bolzano.

After an unsuccessful souvenir hunt around the spa resort town of Merano, we headed up the Adige valley where we made a last, forlorn attempt to access the mythical Stelvio Pass, coming in from the north. It was well and truly chiuso/gesperrt/closed. We camped the night at Prato Allo Stelvio.

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