Day 3 – Limone, Malcesine and Garda town

I rose at about 4 in the morning, well I say rise, I mean sank.  The bed me and Dad are sharing (because Mum won’t sleep in the same bed as him, he has very violent dreams and is likely to lash out in his sleep, also night farts) erm, what was I saying? Mum just burst out laughing at a very rude Facebook post, she wouldn’t tell me what it was about.

Oh yes, I woke up at 4 sinking in the middle of the ‘double’ bed which is actually two single mattresses atop two metal frame, my mattress had slid away and I had come to rest on the metal frame.  I wouldn’t have woken up if it wasn’t for Cecil punching me in the shoulder, after an apparent bad dream about a gnome, which was oddly apt for reasons that will become apparent later.

I went back to sleep till 8ish, whereby I got up, did a wee and went and had a breakfast of meats and cheese, though the meat I selected was brown on the outside, so mum advised me not to eat it. She didn’t say anything about not licking it though. Though when she saw me licking the meat, she slapped me.  I ate all the bread and cheeses I had got for myself and went back for a second helping but they had all gone, this coach tour is like a swarm of locusts.

By about 9am we were all on the coach and informed we would be taken on a ferry to a town called Limone, this excited me greatly, because I’ve been there before but my camcorder broke so I lost all the footage and no one on YouTube could see my holiday there, which meant that literally upwards of 3 people were slightly disappointed! But now we were going back and I would video that horrific shop filled with masks.

We got on the ferry and because Dad’s so old and slow we didn’t make it to the front of the boat and had to settle with the second row of seats, meaning my videoing has the back of a bald man’s head in it.  The sun was out and very warm, but there was a breeze so my sweat was light to moderate (that wouldn’t last).

We got into Limone and immediately looked at all the fabulous ice creams on offer, how these Italians are so thin is a mystery to me, their puddings are amazing.

We walked around for an hour, up the beach, slowly, at 80 year old man pace. Eventually Dad needed a wee as did mum, so they went in to the first public toilets they found. These were toilets of the nature of just a hole in the ground. Dad was so shocked that he called me into have a look. I simply had to try it out. When Dad had done his wee and left the toilet obviously. Not that I stayed in the toilet with him, I waited outside. It was quite rubbish weeing in a hole because the door lock was broken so I had to prop it shut with my left foot while trying to lean over on my right enough to get all my wee down the hole, it was quite a distance from the door to the hole, so this wasn’t an easy task, but I mostly didn’t wee on my shoe. Mostly.

In the middle of Limone there was a man, dressed as a statue of a gnome, he was stood oh I don’t have to describe things anymore, look at this picture of the horror.  Horrible!

We had an ice cream, I asked mum for a biscuit one, assuming she was going to order all our ice creams. So when she said to the woman serving “Can I have a biscuit one” I thought she was getting mine. The woman passed me the ice cream and mum paid for it, this seemed odd, I looked at mum puzzled, she said “Aren’t you getting one” I asked her if the ice cream in my hand was mine, she said it was hers, even though she said she was getting a pistachio one. She had changed her mind as is her want.  It was slightly awkward for a few seconds, but the woman serving gave us Mum’s ice cream and it was paid for. We ate it by the lake side, it was delicious.

We made our way into the shop with the horrible masks, they were horrible! I videoed them and left. We went to the ferry jetty, our ferry was due to leave at 12:30 so we were there by 12:20, the bastard thing had set off.  We could see all our fellow passengers on the boat, they saw us and shouted, luckily the captain stopped leaving and drove back to the ferry jetty thing. We had to jump onto the ferry, no gang plank or anything, we had to leap over a 8-12 inch gap. One of the coach drivers was on the boat and it’s his job to make sure were all on before the damn boat had set off. I gave him one hell of a look as if to say, ‘‘If you’d have gone we would have been stranded there, with no way of getting back to the hotel, you utter prick!’’ I think he got the message, other passengers quipped “We thought you were going to have to swim back to the hotel” I wanted to punch them all in the eye sockets. I didn’t.  The ferry set off 5 minutes early. I think this driver hates us for some reason; he’s a right grumpy git with us, but not other people.

We sailed into Malcesine, food was required, all our tummy’s were a rumble, so the usual argument began, I didn’t want to eat in the first place mum found, it looked grotty, or the second place, and the third place was full of people with no food all looking grumpy, she seems to choose all the horrible looking places first then gets annoyed because i don’t want to eat in what was essentially a cave with garden furniture in. So we walked some more, she was obviously getting wound up, we looked at a menu for one restaurant but before we could inspect it closely, a man, we assumed a waiter, bade us come hither and he sat us down at a table before we knew what was going on. He had bamboozled us with his Italian language, large presence and scary face.

I inspected the menu. Absolutely every pizza came with tomatos! I couldn’t believe it, I was in Italy and pizza was a no no because they put real horrific tomatos on it. The bastards! Luckily mum found spaghetti carbonara, which is just spaghetti with bacon and a sauce.  We were further bamboozled into ordering a garlic bread, he did it by speaking really fast and scarily so we didn’t dare say no.

They brought out a thing, this thing.

Apparently a garlic bread, I would say it was neither bready nor garlicy. I would call it an oily burnt flatbread. Though there was no garlic or bread on it, it was surprisingly nice, if a little burnt.  Then we waited, and waited and waited! 50 minutes we waited there for this spaghetti I think. Though it was only meant to be a starter, when it came it was huge, so much so Mum and Dad couldn’t finish all theirs, and I couldn’t finish their left overs.  It was very nice though.

When we had eaten we made our way to the bus stop, early just in case. We got onto the bus, I gave the horrible driver another horrible look.

We went to Garda town, it was bloody lovely, like It all is round here, all crystal clear water and blue skies. The water was so inviting that at one point I decided to take an underwater photo with my waterproof camera. Which you can see here.

Then my shoes got wet. My mum did not like this one bit, she told me my shoes were wet and I calmly and carefully explained that it was very warm and they would dry quickly. I certainly didn’t shout at her for telling me off in public or over react in any way, and anyone who claims I did snap at her in an uncalled for manor is lying!

Later after further walking, we stopped and mum couldn’t resist, she wanted a paddle! So she took her shoes and socks off and went near the water, on the most stony bit of beach she could find. Only it wasn’t really a beach, more a pile of large pebbles, she put two toes in the water and couldn’t move anymore because the stones hurt her feet.  I, being braver and mighty, took my soggy shoes off and paddled up to my knees, my shorts got a little wet, mum did not like that either, but I mostly ignored her. I took some more pictures underwater. They came out badly!

Eventually we made our soggy way back to the bus stop and came back to the hotel via bus.

Before dinner mum was reading a pamphlet about Malcesine, which has a castle in it, they have a room you can get married in called ‘Casermetta Sala labia’. This made mum laugh so much she wee’d herself and had to run to the bathroom.  Dad wouldn’t and still won’t explain to me why this is in any way funny!

We had tea and the old couple at our table wouldn’t shut up, just when I thought I’d escaped and we had gone for a walk on the big balcony, Mum and dad went back into the dinning room and sat down for pudding, I obviously had pudding too but I didn’t want to have to sit through hearing this old man talk about things I’ve no interest in what so ever!  Though if you’re reading the Doug and Jean (or Joan, not sure which) I’m just making it up to be grumpy, your story of going to a pub that had a river behind it once, was captivating.

Finally by 9 o clock we left the dining room and I’ve written all this, Mum is snoring her head off, Dad’s trying to poo I think.  I’m going to try to sleep now. Tomorrow, Venice! I hope it’s not flooded!