It's a Long Way Down

What goes down must first go up, and it was a long way up. Here I am at the top of the watch tower of Simione's Castello Scaligero. It was a long way up, and at the end quite steep, but unlike the Aberdeenshire castles with their original spiral staircases, this was neither spiral nor ancient. The staircase in fact is modern and quite manageable. The castle guards the entrance to the walled town, and everything going into the town, people and a few cars with permits, must pass the castle and over a narrow bridge over the moat and through the equally narrow town gate.

The clouds of yesterday have dispersed. We walked from Colombare where we are staying, along the isthmus to Sirmione town. Really it is a village as outside the walled town there is a only a long road with row of houses and hotels along a narrow isthmus. Once arrived behind the walls the town is actually very small. I have been here before though I had forgotten how commercialised it is. Where we are staying it is much more "normal", a small suburb on the edge of Sirmione, and not overrun with hotels and tourists, though there are a few of us.

By the time I got to the top of the tower I think I would have completed my 10,000 steps for the day. I have to confess we took the bus for the return journey.