A HARD DAYS LIFE - HOLIDAYS IN ITALY

Holidays are hard life ! There are so many things for me to rediscover, places where I haven't been since 30 years or even more. My daily program is : in the mornings walking around in the little cities looking at the many shops for tourists, of course enjoying the beauty of the lake, the mountains and the little pittoresque houses. The afternoons it's usually so hot that you can only lay motionless in the garden. Even moving a finger is too much work ! I don't go to the beach at the lake because it is now so crowded with surfers that you can't even get a square cm of space and then with the risk to get a sail or a bord at your head !

Around 3.30 I walk down to the beach and have my daily "Sorbetto". It is a kind of frozen lemon icecream served in a Champagne glass and you drink it with a straw. It is very refreshing.

The evening is usually for our friends here around or for the family but besides my sister in law and a few cousins there are not many left. My Italian came back as soon as I put my feet on the Italian ground. Some words are missing, but that doesn't matter I am also Italian after all and use my hands to speak !

Yesterday I did a bus excursion to Verona (Mr. Gattino knows it by heart so he prefered to go to his sister and chat)
Verona is the city of Romeo and Giulietta. I took a lot of pictures because it is a very beautiful town.

As soon as I am back I will report more detailed of course and show pictures. It is quite difficult to upload them and it takes a lot of time, so I use my daily hour more for commenting and see what happens in blogworld. Of course one hour isn't a lot so please forgive me if I don't answer all your comments, but I have read them. I will catch up as soon as I am back.



My daily view when I eat my "Sorbetto"


With friends in a restaurant. The "boys" know each other since primary school !




Little streets and places



and Giuletta's balconee in Verona (more pictures to come of course)

SHOW & TELL

More participants are here at Kelly's Show and tell Friday


There is nothing to show and tell about the things we have in our flat here at the Garda Lake in Italy where I am on holidays. But about the swimming pool yes, here is were I am laying every day enjoying the sunshine and the view of the mountains and the lake.

One morning I saw how a swimming pool is cleaned today ! Not anymore a musculous brown burnt young man as you see in the movies where you can admire his muscels no, today it is a mousy man nothing special who sits there and watches his robot cleaning the pool ! I had never seen that and only regret that apparently it doesn't exist for household purposes and I can't built in a pool only for the pleasure to have a robot !



The view I have everyday in the garden


The robot cleaning the swimming pool




it even climbs up the walls !


One view of the lake






And here is my office where I go for Internet connection every morning while Mr. Gattino still sleeps. It is the reception and shop at the same time of the camping just behind our garden. The table with the shoes on is my desk. The lady who works at the reception and in the shop prepares it every morning together with a nice red office chair and always offers me a coffee. Since she knows that I am married with an Italian I am not a tourist any more and get special treatment (only the price remains the same, business is business).The only hick is all incoming campers come to me first to book a place !

Tomorrow we will go up high in the mountains and have a picnic with friends.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

I am actually at the Garda Lake in northern Italy. I haven't been there since 20 years. I came back for the first time last year.

13 things which have changed in 20 years

1. No new buildings had been built around the northern part of the lake due to lack of space. There is no room between the rocks and the lake. How fortunate for the beauty of the landscape

2. A lot of old farm houses in the mountains have been transformed into hotels, restaurants or just as bed and breakfast. Of course the farmers make more money with the tourists then with a farm on rocks.

3. Houses have been modernized and a lot of them have now air conditionning and double windows, but they have kept their original facade

4. Streets have been renewed and are very nice but still very narrow. Mountains do not move for humans.

5. The high season is July and August and it's full of tourists around the lake. In the northern part they are mostly Germans so if I close my eyes in a restaurant I could think I am in Germany with an Italian waiter !

6. The Dutchs who had invaded the lake in the 70/80 almost disappeared and are now replaced by Danishs. Probably due to the quite expensive area and Dutchs are reputated to be very economic and sometimes even stingy. The Italians used to call them "Niente Lire" which means "no money" because of their licence plate NL for Netherlands.

7. Parking spaces are very difficult to find and everywhere you have to pay now. Uniformed "parking police" checks all the time and if you haven't payed it can be very expensive.

8. Food hasn't changed it still is so good ! Yesterday I had Spaghettis with mussels, shrimps and other seafood in a wonderful tomato sauce

9. Thunderstorms are still very impressive because the thunder makes an echo in the mountains

10. Torbole, the place where we use to go became now an European center for windsurf. Surfers come here from all over the world even Australians and Canadians

11. When you walk along the beach you have to pay attention not to get a Segel in you face, surfers are not very careful with non surfers

12. The sun is very strong and you can easily get sunburnt

13. Wine is still cheaper then water !



when you arrive, the first view on the lake



my daily view out of the window


narrow streets around the lake

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

ON HOLIDAYS IN ITALY

No compiled news today ! I am on holidays at the Garda lake in Italy. (see my travel blog Countries & Cities) The internet connection is not that great so that I am happy to have pre scheduled at least all my pictures for the different memes and use the time to visit you. I have found a nice "office" on the camping ground just behind our Building and can sit there in the garden. Of course people are starring at me wondering what I am doing there early morning with a computer !

We had an awful trip down here, the first part took 10 h instead of 6 because I hadn't thought that in certain parts of Germany the yearly summer holidays had started and people were underway to the south ! The highways were packed ! Besides this football (soccer) fans were on the road to Vienna where the European football championship took place, Germany against Spain ! Yesterday morning I heard that Spain won, if it would have been Germany, they would have gone mad here around. Without knowing I knew that the Spanish team won because of the silence.

It was very very hot and this night we had a terrible thunderstorm. If ever you have lived a thunderstorm in the mountains you know what I am talking about. It just seems the world's end ! The thunder already loud in flat areas in the mountains it has an echo ! The wind almost blow the building away and on our balconee the chairs were pushed from one side to the other which made an awful noise. Fortunately here nothing was damaged apparently. This morning the sun is shining innocently again and the nightmare is completely over.

I am still posting the same picture to show where I am I forgot to take the cable of my camera with me and can't connect to my computer. Today we will go to the next city and try to find one.

FUN MONDAY - QUIRKS

Lisa Marie wants to know what our quirks are. "Confess to one, confess to ten, you decide. Just come back Monday ready to spill the beans, the rest of the world may look at you like you are from Mars, but you‘re among friends here. We won’t laugh, in fact that eccentricity just may endear you to us more".


I didn't know at all the meaning of "quirk". I had never heard this word either and had to look it up in my dictionary and in Wikipedia. There I learned that"quirk arises from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, and that prior to the twentieth century, the most common variant for this “phylum” was Quark", and "Quark" I only know as white cheese.

So what ? I asked people around me about my "quirks" or manners. Apparently I have NONE. I don't pull at my hairs, don't bite my lips, don't bite my nails, don't get red in my face and I don't neigh like a horse when I laugh. I don't have any nervious twitch either. I don't munch when I eat or do other special noises. All in all I seem to be too normal and this is probably my quirk ! Don't think now I am the perfect woman, I have a lot of very bad habits which compensates the lack of quirks, unless a quirk is also to look every day several times for my glasses and car keys which I always put in the same place, only the places are different. In this case that would be my quirk !!

WEEKLY WINNERS

More participants here at Sarcastic Mom Weekly winners


I am in Italy, see post below. As we arrived only yesterday I haven't pictures yet.

These are my weekly winners of last week. I tried out close ups with my cats. I was quite satisfied with the result. I only have a little Sony Cyber Shot camera.









Arthur











Pookie



and ol' Lisa (17 years old)