lake garda

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.

Burnt oily 'garlic' offerring — Burnt oily ‘garlic’ offerring

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!

I’m sat here writing this

Not pictured, me in my boxer shorts trumping

There is a smell of calm and the sensation of relief in me. But why am I here and what the dickens am I playing at? Well read on, do!

Day one

It was four in the morning, Cecil let out a scream, his scream went from his mouth, through the air and into my sleeping ear, filled with terror and urine, I jumped up out of bed, hitting Cecil square in the face with my face, it was like a very violent kiss, if you kiss by smacking your father with your eye socket.

He had woken me up in the worst way possible, the startle method. His nose, now bloody and throbbing, bore the brunt of his stupid maneuver, as did my eye. He ran off crying, and I went back to sleep, I didn’t know what he had done it for. At a quarter to five, my mum came in my bedroom, smacked me on the legs and shouted at me to get up. An impromptu holiday was to be undertaken, because it’s my parent’s 50th anniversary of something, not their wedding, something else they won’t tell me. So were going on a mystery holiday. Luckily Dad had packed my clothes for me, I just had to grab my laptop and camcorder, phone and digital camera, tooth equipment and by five am we were in a taxi. By 5:05 am we were at a bus stop in the middle of town, there were a dozen old people also waiting with cases, there was also a constant steady stream of en drunken revelers from the previous Saturday night, staggering this way and that. Our bus stop got continually questioned with “Where’s you’s going?” and “Why are you people?” The old biddies shouted back answers such as “Wetwang” and “who’s a boozy boy”.

By 5:30 an Esk valley bus came and picked us all up, I assumed we were going to stay somewhere in northern Yorkshire. I was wrong, this was something called a ‘feeder’ coach, though we were never fed any food! After hours we ended up at Woodmansey or Woolsey or somewhere, I don’t know where exactly, I was very tired. We got moved onto a coach, by national holiday, Dad blindfolded me so I couldn’t see where it was going. This was a massive waste of time and huge inconvenience because as soon as the drivers got on the coach they said “Welcome to national holidays trip to Lake Garda” somewhere we have been before, but I fear that blog was lost when MySpace decided to delete all my previous blogs.

The day then consisted of nothing but sitting on a coach and stopping at service stations and then going on a ferry from Dover to France, nothing happened on there, compared to our overnight ferry trip to Europort last year, this was a daddle/doddle.

Nothing of note happened in France as we made our way to our overnight stay in a hotel in Metz, save that at one service station me and Mum took a walk down a path behind the services and then a small angry French woman came and shouted at us in French, mum said ‘I do not speak French’ but in French, which seems quite ironic to me, so the angry French woman shouted “FORBIDDEN!” twice as we started walking away.

We got to our overnight hotel and slept like logs, which means going to sleep very quickly and quite well.

Day two

We got up at quarter past 5, had the most delicious breakfast or meats, cheese and proper French bread, which both Mum and Dad couldn’t chew because of their pathetic fake teeth. I had a whole baton of bread with 6 butter cubes and god knows how much meat and cheese slices.

Then we spent 12 or so hours, on a coach, with stops at service stations. Nothing happened apart from I got angry as the old woman opposite me on the coach who never ever wears her seatbelt.

Oh, once when we were all getting back on the bus after a comfort stop (which wasn’t particularly comforting due to the high level of stench coming from the toilet area). We got back on the coach and while I was stood in the walkway of the bus, I was taking my jacket off to put it in the overhead compartment when a tiny angry old biddy woman walked up to me, said excuse me in a rude manor and pushed my shoulder so hard I had to move out of her way, the grumpy old cow sack, I wanted to punch her in her neck flaps.

We got to Lake Garda at about 6 o clock, Mum and Dad rushed off the bus to get the key to the room, while I was stuck on the coach letting old people go passed me, I couldn’t hold a trump in any longer and it just slipped out, there was a very definite stench, two days’ worth of poo was waiting in there and its gas was desperate to come out, and come out it did. The queue on the bus came to a stop right next to my seat as some old codger was struggling with the stairs, the smell built up and I could see people had defiantly smelt it. I thought about saying “Yep that was me, and if you don’t want more, let me off now, I’ve not pooed in 2 days” but I didn’t I just looked at my shoes and fat ankles.

Eventually we all got off the bus and made it into the room, see picture, Cecil was just sat on the double bed weeping with how beautiful the view was/is. He claimed to be incredibly happy.

After I and mum had pooed (one after the other, not at the same time) we went down stairs and got shown to our table. There was an old couple there already, as is customary, they were/are from New Castle or Teenside or something, I don’t know, it’s all the same. The food was semi self-service, well, the salad was self-service, so I had a nice salad of some bread roll and butter with lots of salt. Then we all had what looked like cheese and ham pasta, but it wasn’t, it was pasta with salmon and a liquid, I did not like it, far too fishy tasting. Mum and dad did not like it. we’ve come back to the room to eat the expensive crisps we got in Switzerland.

I’m eating some now, sat on the balcony and writing this, there are lots of English people sat downstairs, drinking. They are loud!

Tag: lake garda

Italian holiday 2013 – Part 2

Italian holiday 2013 – Part 1