Focused: The Beauty of a Lake

"A lake is a landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I live on an island; I am surrounded by water.

With the recent purchase of a bicycle last year, I can now enjoy river views whenever I ride the bike lanes that encircle this small island.

Being on the East Coast of America, I also have easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, and I have taken many excursions to the shore and have spent many vacations along it's great coastline from Maine to Florida.

My many trips to Europe have taken me to their great cities also built along great rivers or situated by the side of the sea. But only recently have I begun to experience and come to truly appreciate the beauty of a lake.

I have had limited experiences with the lakes in the United States. My earliest was a trip to Lake Erie with my family in the late 1950's.

Those of you who have memories of the environmental issues in the U.S. in the '50's and '60's may recall that Lake Erie was terribly polluted and had earned the nicknamed "North America's Dead Sea". The health of Lake Erie, like so many of our waterways, has improved significantly, but this earliest lake memory had caused me to shy away from any lake destinations for many years.

The upper right-side photo shows my mother, my brothers and me (the little guy-extreme right) posing on our 1952 Buick Roadmaster on a Florida beach sometime around 1953-4. This car was also our transportation to Lake Erie years later.

But this blog isn't about my visits to Lake Erie or Florida, or Manhattan, but rather about what I call the Great Lakes of Northern Italy. And it is about my recent visits to Lake Garda and my growing appreciation for these lakes which began almost 40 years ago.

Since my Lake Erie visit it would be almost 20 years before I would see another lake. In 1976 Peter and I took our first trip together to Italy. We flew to Geneva from where we would travel south into Italy by train using a EurailPass. We would make stops at Bologna, Florence, Venice and terminate in Milan for our return flight. Ideally this trip was to visit these great cities of Northern Italy, but my Italian employer at the time, suggested a lake visit, thus our stop in Stresa located on the shores of Lake Maggiore.

EurailPasses include many additional perks other than train travel. Included in the price is the use of many lake ferries, so prior to our departing Geneva for Italy, Peter and I opted for a day excursion on Lake Geneva sailing from Geneva to Lausanne and return. I have only these two pictures from that trip. That's Peter on the left in Geneva, and the picture of me on the right was taken in Lausanne.

I have never owned a car. In the United States, I rely on public transportation (and my bike). Train travel here can connect me from one city to another, but rarely affords me the opportunity to travel directly to waterside locations without the aide of a car. Whereas in Europe, I can easily travel between cities and towns situated directly on the water. Usually in these locations there is a bus network and an extensive water transportation system available to use for sightseeing, shopping and even commutation.

As an example: We left Geneva and took an incredible overnight train across the Alps via the Sempione Pass to Stresa on Lake Maggiore. From there, we continued to use our EurailPass to explore the gardens of Isla Bella and to take a hydrofoil to Locarno, located at the northern tip of the lake and back in Switzerland. From Locarno we traveled to Domodossola on the scenic Centovalli railway. To this day, Peter and I have very fond memories of this short trip that offers spectacular views. A regular train whisked us from Domodossola back to Stresa.

So here I was with my first two lake experiences since Erie. I was hooked, but not overly. It would be another 30 years before I came to another European lake.

Lake Lugano

In 2008 we made the decision to travel to Lake Como, Italy's smallest and as some might consider the most beautiful of the three northern lakes. We flew into Milan and took a half-hour car service directly to our hotel in the town of Cernobbio. However, we could have easily taken a train from Milan to the town of Como and traveled two stops on the lake. We spent the week traveling by lake steamer to visit the many towns on the lake including Como, Varenna, and the jewel Bellagio. We even took a train from Como to Lugano, Switzerland to spend the day at Lake Lugano.

I had posted my impressions of Lake Como in an earlier post that you can view by clicking here: 2 Days in October - Lago di Como. I include these additional unpublished photos below as well.

Lake Como completely enamored us to the Italian Lakes, so in 2011 we decided to try Lake Garda, the third and largest of Italy's northern lakes.

We used Venice as our gateway, which allowed us to split our vacation by having a week on the canals of Venice and then a week on the lake.

For our first visit we based ourselves at Malcesine, at the base of Monte Baldo in the rugged mountainous landscape of the narrow northern section of the lake. From this home base we made ferry trips to Limone and Riva. We traveled to Bardolino by autobus, but made the return trip to Malcesine by hydrofoil.

During that first visit to Malcesine, I made the misguided decision to attempt blogging on a daily basis. While I may have some technical skills, I am definitely not an expert at blogging and it takes time to publish these posts without annoying my readers. To the many of you who received the 4-5 duplicate emails for my last posting, I apologize. I'll try not to do that again.

The problem with daily postings, is that you then spend the evening trying to decide which photos to post, downloading them from camera to iPad, uploading them to Blogger and emailing them to your audience; not a very relaxing vacation. So instead, now I will only blog my travel memories, not my real-time travel activities. I've added a couple of Malcesine pictures into this blog, but anyone wishing to revisit my original daily postings of this trip, please feel free to click on any of the following links: Malcesine, Italy - Mobile Update - Day One; Mobile Blog - Day 2 - Malcesine & Limone; Mobile Blog - Day 3 - Monte Baldo; Mobile Blog - Day 4 - Riva; Mobile Blog - Day 5 - Bardolino; Mobile Blog - Day 6 - Castello Scaligero di Malcesine

Last year we opted to return to both Venice and Lake Garda. This time we chose to stay in Desenzano di Garda, in the extreme south, in the flattest and widest section of the lake. Unlike Malcesine, which is relatively remote, Desenzano has a train station which gave us direct access to Venice, but also allowed us the ability to make several inland day trips to Verona and Mantua.

We loved Desenzano so much that we extended our stay from 7 to 10 nights. Our hotel, the Piroscafo (which translates to steamer) sat like a ship along the edge of the Porto Vecchio steps away from the lake front.

The lake ferries are just as frequent here, and we made multiple visits to the neighboring towns of Sirmione, Salo, Gardone, Garda and a return visit to Bardolino for its delicious wine. Like the north of the lake, sporting activities abound. I was thrilled to be in the area for a bicycle race. You can see how close I was to the riders. This area is also very rich with Roman history. In the town of Desenzano, is Villa Romano. The excavation of this ancient country estate displays many intact mosaic floors. The ruins of the Grotte di Catullo, on the tip of Sirmione made this very touristy town, with a splendid Scaligera castle, that much more interesting. We were even excited to discover a villa once owned by Maria Callas on the short walk from the town to the ruins.

Have I failed to mention the food? I don't normally give restaurant names, but we were so impressed with the family operated Gattolardo (Fat Cat) that we ate there every night but one. I had the best grilled fish ever, and every night Gigi introduced me to a new grappa.