Kite Surfer on Lake Garda

Today was billed as a free day, but we were given the option of paying a 20 Euro supplement for a boat trip on the lake - which most of the group took up. So in spite of the torrential rain and thunder as we left the hotel, we did the 20-minute walk into the town and got on board the water taxi for a 20-minute ride to the town of Malcesine on the west side of Lake Garda. Just after we disembarked the rain fortunately stopped (and we had intermittent sunshine for the rest of the day).

After a couple of hours looking round there, we took the boat across the lake to the lovely town of Limone. There are various possible explanations for the origin of the name of the town. According to some, the name derives from limen, which means border, or lima, which means river, but it has also been suggested that it comes from an ancient Celtic word limo (or lemos) meaning "elm". Anyway, surprisingly it does not seem to derive from lemons, in spite of the fact that it was in the past a major lemon-growing location until after the First World War (the inhabitants were evacuated during the war and the unattended lemon trees died from the cold winter as there was no-one to look after them).

We then took the boat back to Riva del Garda, where after a (rather chilly) swim in the hotel outdoor pool we spent a lazy evening.

Lake Garda is famous for kite surfing, and I was able to capture the main blip, showing a surfer in mid-air, from the boat.

The first extra shows a narrow street in Malcesine; the streets there are all paved in 3 stripes. The outer stripes are paved with stones which are smooth and rather slippery whereas the centre stripe has rough stones; donkeys could grip the surface when walking down the middle, pulling goods on sledge-like carts which slid along the outer stripes. Clever, eh?!

The second extra is a rather attractive corner in Limone.