Familiar turf from 2014.

Sunday 24th June

Time to leave our hotel in Lecco and head further west to Lago di Garda, which I think is the biggest of these northern lakes. Rather than just head straight down the motorways we decided on a small detour to a town on the shore of another lake, which we thought would be a good spot for lunch. Along the way we passed a laundromat so decided to get the washing done.

Mamma's little helper.

Lago Iseo, and the town of Iseo for lunch. Apparently lake Iseo is the highest lake in Europe. Rob enjoyed a pizza and I had what ended up being a pork schnitzel. Both nice meals.

Our view at lunch.

Rob worked his way through this 16" pizza.
Fortunately very thin bases so not quite as filling.

On the other side of the lake we could see this village and only a few k down the lake,
another of a similar size.

These three ducklings were following Mum who'd dive down,
followed by the chicks. Three chicks would then pop up, with no sign of mum.
When she reappeared there was frantic paddling to get back to her side.

Up, over and through the mountains to our hotel in Vallio Terme. The Italians are great at tunnels - mountain in the way? Go through it! At least the roads up and over the mountains were good roads and generally wider than those in France.

Our hotel is a few k away from the lake but in a lovely location. We stayed at this hotel in 2014 and the owner here remembers our faces from then. The restaurant is closed Sunday and Monday nights so we ventured in to the town and took pot luck at one of the pizza places. Rob had spaghetti marinara and I had tagliatelle della nonna - excellent meals. The marinara was a huge bowl and Rob said it was better than his bouillabaise in Marseille.

This had a creamy tomato-ey sauce with parma ham.

Spaghetti marinara - close to the best marinara Rob's ever eaten.