Lake Garda, Italy - Part 3: We made it and it was Bellissimo!

Lake Garda, August 2018 – Part Three: We made it and it was Bellissimo! 

Our wonderful week….

Sunday:

Arrival - We arrived at Bella Italia in the dark. I always find it odd arriving somewhere new in the dark, it’s difficult to get a feel for the place when you can’t really see it! We were impressed to have received contact from a Eurocamp rep before we travelled to gauge our arrival time and provide us with a phone number to call should we need to make contact. This was really handy as having left the airport when the kids were already hungry, we could call ahead and check there would be somewhere we could grab a bite to eat when we arrived. Upon arrival we checked in with the campsite itself and then with our Eurocamp rep where we were given maps, local info and of course our keys to our mobile home. Having located our accommodation and off loaded our baggage, we headed down to the heart of the campsite and picked up some takeaway pizza. Eating pizza at 10 o’clock at night was a bit of a novelty for kids and therefore turned our first night in to a very late one…but hey, we were on holiday and the kids decided to be kind and lay in a little the next day. 

Monday:

Finding our feet - Mr S and Master S popped off to the supermarket on site to grab some breakfast and we leisurely ate this before embarking on our first full day in Italy. We enjoyed having a good walk around the site and discovered just how close to the lake we were. Passing by the huge swimming pool complex we noticed that people were squeezed, everywhere your turned! Mr S commented that the pool resembled human soup!!! When we reached the beach and realised just how close we were to it, we couldn’t understand why anyone would want to use the pools when the beach at the lake was just so stunning (and quiet!). The water was beautifully shallow and warm in the lake which made it nice and easy to get the kids in and playing safely. Mr S and Master S had fun hiring a paddle board for an hour, pottering around on the lake. Tip: entering the lake was stony and pretty tough on your feet, a little slippery too. We bought cheap wet shoes from the campsite shop to protect our feet. That evening after a lovely, lazy day we tried out one of the restaurants on the campsite, La Terrazze and as there was a lift up to the first floor, we managed to reserve a table with a wonderful view of the lake…bliss! They also had the most delicious sundae I had ever tasted with lashings of Baileys and hazelnuts…yum!  

Tuesday:

Beautiful Peschiera - Bella Italia is situated just outside the beautiful town of Peschiera. It could be reached by the campsite’s land train in just 5 minutes and we were really pleased to see that the train had a disabled carriage on the end. For our first visit to Peschiera we used the land train and were dropped off just outside the town’s 16^thcentury old walls, which by itself was a beautiful site to see. To start off our exploration we climbed up the steep slopes of the walls and found a lovely little park which Miss S and Master S were delighted with. It was a very hot, mid-thirties kind of day, so even in the shade in the late afternoon, we couldn’t stay playing for too long. We loved exploring the town’s streets full of gelaterias, with a few tourist shops nestled in. We sampled one of the local cafes for a reviving stop and a waterside restaurant for dinner later, where we had none other than…pizza! We couldn’t leave Peschiera without sampling one of the many gelaterias! The hardest part was which shop to choose from as they were plentiful (!) and then deciding on one of the wonderful offerings. 

Wednesday:

A day exploring lake side towns - Lazise / Bardolino / Garda and back to Peschiera del Garda. 

We were keen to go to a local market and had visions of picking up some lovely fresh produce to cook back at our caravan, so we headed north to Lazise. Sadly, we fell in to a tourist trap here and soon realised it was not the kind of market we were after, as we passed stall after stall of tacky souvenirs and not too much else. As this was very much a tourist market, the town was absolutely jam packed and very hard to navigate with two small children, including a wheelchair. Mr S and I thought Lazise looked like a beautiful little town and we were disappointed we couldn’t see it in all it’s glory with large market stalls blocking most of the views. We decided we’d go on somewhere else to explore and ended up doing just that for the rest of the day. Heading north once more, our next stop was Bardolino. With it’s much quieter streets to wander around, it’s stunning historic buildings, such as the 11^thcentury Romanesque church of San Severo, and it’s magnificent lake views,  it was a perfect spot for lunch. We sampled some Gnochhi, Bolognese and Carbonara before ending our stop with a visit to a huge park with a children’s playground, a bonus for Miss S and Master S. Next up was Garda itself and we were blown away by just how beautiful each town we came across was. We just seemed to go from one stunning place to the next. The views from Garda were some of the most magnificent of all. 

Our final stop, we headed back to Peschiera for a drink and another little explore. Master S had his heart set on spending his holiday money on a Beanie Boo (toy!) that he had spotted the day before, so we headed back to the same café/bar in which I sampled an Aperol Spritz…well, when in Rome (kind of!) and all that! 

Thursday:

Birthday on the beach - We had planned to head to Verona on my birthday but as the forecast was for rain the second half of our week, we wanted to take advantage of possibly our last glorious day of sunshine and head back to the beach at the lake. After a lovely, relaxed breakfast in our mobile home, we headed to the beach via the shop to get the kids inflatables we had promised them! The relaxation continued with lots of time in the gorgeously warm lake, a paddle board hire and time to soak up our beautiful surroundings! Why anyone would want to head to one of the swimming pools on site over this, was beyond us! That night we had another meal in La Terrazze restaurant to get my hands on another one of those Baileys sundaes and a fair bit of Prosecco!! 

Friday:

Verona - WOW! What a city! The weather held out throughout the day time and we spent the best part of the day wandering the streets of this impressive, historic city. We fought the suffocating crowds through the underpass to Juliet’s balcony. We couldn’t go to Verona without seeing it! The many Juliet wannabes we spotted were quite amusing too. Mr S and I are now longing to go back and see an opera at the awe inspiring ampitheatre. This visit definitely left us wanting to see more of Italy’s beautiful cities. Some food and some shopping later, we made it back to our camp site just as the heavens opened! The rain was ridiculously heavy so I braved it and grabbed some food from the onsite supermarket to cook in our accommodation. It was only when I got back to our accommodation I realised we didn’t have any baking trays! Ever resourceful, Mr S made it work!  

Saturday: 

Desenzano del Garda – Our timings were almost perfect that day. A storm was forecast to hit later in the day so we took the chance to get out and see more, before our return home the next day. We stumbled upon Desenzano del Garda and wow, what a find! We were lucky enough to enjoy another gorgeous lunch outside and upon looking back on that, later that evening, as the storm well and truly battered our accommodation, it was hard to believe it was the same day! We were so glad we had got out when we did and discovered yet another beautiful town!

Sunday:

Heading home - It was time to head home and back to reality of school uniform ironing and early rises, after a great six weeks school holidays and fantastic first experience of Italy. Our journey back to the airport and all the way home, went pretty smoothly. 

A little more about Bella Italia…

Accommodation: 

We had a Vista 2 mobile home, which consisted of two bedrooms, 1 double and 1 twin. In theory you could probably fit 3 children in the second bedroom as there were twin beds plus a bunk above, but the step ladder could not be put down when the two single beds were in use. We had two shower rooms, one for the kids and an en-suite to our room which was great. The accommodation at the Vista level on the whole was basic but adequate. There were parts which could have been cleaner (cob webs lurking down sides of furniture etc) but all in all, we couldn’t complain for what we had paid for it but probably would have, had we paid full whack! We had pre-ordered a welcome pack which consisted of tea, coffee, sugar, creamer, crisps, jam, wine and bottles of water and juice. An essentials pack consisting of matches, sponge/dish cloth, tea towel, bin bag, washing up liquid and all purpose cleaner and soap. We also hired our bed linen and towels as well as beach towels, to really cut down on the amount we needed to bring with us. Baby/toddler equipment was an optional extra also with offerings such as booster seats/high chairs, baby baths etc. 

In the kitchen were all the usual mod cons you would expect – fridge, oven, hob, crockery, utensils etc. Annoyingly they were missing a couple of essential items such as a baking tray for the oven. We didn’t plan to necessarily cook too much but when the weather turned later on in the week, this would have been very handy. The mobile homes were closer together than we had envisaged, but we could park our hire car to the side or in between caravans so worked out fine. The steps were a problem  with a wheelchair and something that could have easily been solved with a small ramp!  

Facilities: 

The site had a supermarket selling fresh baked goods, fresh meat, canned/frozen goods and had a Gluten Free section as good as some small supermarkets back home. They also sold the most delicious Cannolis (Cannolis – the joy that is the scrumptious pastry/pasta cone with a vanilla filling and a hint of lemon! We ate them everyday so surprised we didn’t come home around two stone heavier!) that Mr S and I were slightly addicted to whilst there. The kids loved the different character biscuits on offer too such as Peppa Pig, Spiderman and Hello Kitty!  As well as the supermarket there was a greengrocer, a toy/souvenir shop, a bike hire shop, a shop selling swimwear and inflatables for the pool/beach and an arcade. As previously mentioned, there was a huge swimming complex of various pools and slides but this was neither particularly practical or appealing to us! A wonderful asset to the park was also the land train which took you to Peschiera del Garda, the beautiful local town. As mentioned previously, the end carriage was a disabled carriage. The train driver released a ramp to get Miss S in to the carriage with ease. On the return from Peschiera we had to be quite firm in getting Miss S her disabled carriage as many Dutch and German families tried to descend on it with their children’s strollers, which actually could just be folded and not dumped in the disabled carriage! In quite close proximity to Bella Italia was also Gardaland and the Sea Life Aquarium.  

Activities: 

Being the school holidays the camp site had various activities on for the kids such as football, volleyball and crafts. A mini theme park opened up at night which had mini quad bikes, train, bumper boats on offer. Also in the evening a large inflatables area opened up with various different bouncy castles for the kids to burn off all their energy on. As it was open from around 5-11pm you could go in and out as you wanted to, once you had paid the small entrance fee. The entertainment team also put shows on in the evening.

Restaurants: 

Pizza, pizza, pizza…Master S’s diet for our entire week!!! The rest of us however did sample an array of wonderful Italian food as well as the odd pizza. Meats, pastas, gnocchi etc. For those on a gluten free diet, gluten free options were advertised in some places but otherwise you had to be sure to ask for ‘senza glutiene’.

The campsite had numerous restaurants, we went to the Le Terrazze restaurant twice as we really enjoyed the food and view. As mentioned, this was the restaurant of choice for my birthday, as I had loved that Baileys sundae so much, not such a traditional Italian dessert but completely scrumptious!! Le Terrazze also offered take away pizzas of which we sampled on the night we arrived. There were a further 3 restaurants to choose from but we preferred to sample food from outside the campsite too. 

To end…I hear you breathe a sigh of relief! 

All in all, we loved our first Italian adventure! There were parts of the journey that didn’t run as smoothly as they could have and the accessibility of air travel for Miss S is a whole other story, none the less we had a fantastic trip. It is now April ’19 when I have finally managed to write this up (every day life kind of got in the way for a while!) and Master S still talks of our Eurocamp holiday and is keen to go back, so clearly he was impressed. There were parts of our Eurocamp holiday which we really enjoyed, particularly the close proximity to the lake and the beautiful places we visited away from the camp and others such as the overcrowding and busyness, we didn’t like quite so much. Eurocamp really need to do more to be more inclusive of families such as ours. If we wanted to return to Bella Italia it would now be more difficult as only 7 months on, Miss S is much bigger and heavier than she was and we are needing to rely much more on accessibility aids. 

If you missed part one: 'Planning our first trip to Italy' and part two: 'Easy, Peasy, Cheesy Jet...or so we hoped!' make sure you go back for a read!