The attractions of Gardaland are many... It rained and rained all day today. I had worked out that I would move on to a campsite, “Holiday village Butterfly” on the shore of Lake Garda, with a view to exploring ,or even circumnavigating, the lake. It is only a short drive from Mantua, and when I arrived at Pescheira del Garda the weather was so poor that sightseeing round the lake held no appeal. Neither did visiting any of the several theme parks near here. (The largest, ‘Gardaland’ is apparently Europe’s most visited theme park after Disneyland, Paris. There is also ‘Canevaworld’, ‘Movie Land Studios’ and several other attractions)
Pescheira del Garda is a nice little place, a resort town and ferry station, at the south end of the lake. It has a small ,strange, old town, which occupies the centre of a fortress on an island, split in half by the river Mincio as it leaves the lake(perhaps that should be two islands, then) ,and a ferry dock ,and there are yachts moored up all along the waterfront.
Pescheira del Garda is a nice little place, a resort town and ferry station, at the south end of the lake. It has a small ,strange, old town, which occupies the centre of a fortress on an island, split in half by the river Mincio as it leaves the lake(perhaps that should be two islands, then) ,and a ferry dock ,and there are yachts moored up all along the waterfront.
 The fortress of Pescheira del Garda |  The waterfront.The campsite is at the end of the avenue of trees on the right. |
Tourists queuing to polish the statue of Juliet One advantage of the campsite’s location is that it is just 10 minutes’ walk to the train station, so I caught a train into Verona for the afternoon, a 15 minute ride. It is quite a big and busy city and doesn’t have any camping spots in the city itself. There are some historic features remaining in the old city, which occupies a loop of the river Adige. The Roman amphitheatre remains, perhaps on a par with that at Arles, and they stage operas in it now. In the Piazza del Erbe, the centre square of the old city, and what was originally the Roman forum, there are the usual set of Renaissance city buildings, but there are no big spaces and it all seems a bit cramped. Just off this square is “Juliet’s house” with a balcony, obviously a completely fictitious place but which attracts tourists like flies. Apparently they have a staff of agony aunts who respond to the thousands of letters people in need of love send in. I couldn’t resist a peep at this spectacle-I noticed that there is a bronze statue of Juliet which has had its right boob polished shiny by all the tourists having their photo taken with her!
 Verona's Roman amphitheatre |  The Castelvecchio |
I visited the city art museum in the Castelvecchio. This building was heavily damaged in the war and its famous bridge destroyed, but it has been rebuilt. It is interesting that the rulers of these cities seemed to fear plots and rebellions from their own people more than attacks from other states (although there was plenty of that too). The Scaligeri family, whose domain this was, built their castle on the edge of the city, with its own bridge leading to a fort the other side of the bridge, so they could escape into the countryside if things got sticky in town.
I had to do a double-take at one picture in the museum. For a moment I thought this painting of a smiling child holding a stick man drawing was a Banksy, slipped in to the exhibition, but it was painted around 1520 !
I had to do a double-take at one picture in the museum. For a moment I thought this painting of a smiling child holding a stick man drawing was a Banksy, slipped in to the exhibition, but it was painted around 1520 !
The rain took the gloss off the city a bit and I felt that 3 hours had been enough when I caught the train back to the lake again. In the evening I had the choice of the campsite restaurant, although in this case it was dead and didn’t look up to much, being in a wet marquee: I didn’t need much persuasion to ignore the 10% discount offer I’d been given .Fortunately there was plenty of choice outside the gates and I settled for a lively restaurant in a large converted boatshed, with a huge fire going at one end. Interestingly the clientele consisted mostly of several big all male parties. Perhaps sailors or water sportsmen?
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