Mobile Blog - Day 4 - Riva

Today we left Malcesine on a Battello (motorship) for Riva. Before sharing photos of this trip, let me first tell a little story about a lost key. Yesterday, on top of Monte Baldo, Peter overheard the waiter say that he had found a key. Thinking that the waiter then returned said key to it's rightful owner, he thought nothing more about it. That is until we got back to the apartment and I couldn't find my key.

We searched high and low and could not find it. I'm not a religious person, but years ago I was told always to kiss some money up to St. Anthony (the patron saint of lost causes and lost things). Once kissed up, I relax and forget about my problem. In every time that I have done this, I usually get my bearings, remember where I last had the item and voila, it is found.

Today I returned to the Fuvia and sure enough the key was found and returned to me. I always keep my promise, and I will go to the church here in Malcesine and give 5,00€ (the amount I promised in my head).

Here is a picture of the church in Riva. The key had not yet been found, so no donation was made here. I only pay for results.

Riva del Garda
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Riva del Garda (German: Reiff am Gartsee) is a town and comune in the northern Italian province of Trentino. It is also known simply as Riva. The estimated population is 15,151.

Riva del Garda belonged to the republic of Venice and later to the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1918. Since 1918, Riva del Garda has been a part of Italy.

Riva del Garda is located at the north-western corner of Lake Garda, approximately 70 metres (230 ft) above sea level. The town is located at the southern edge of the Italian Alps, near to the Dolomites. It is bordered by Mount Rocchetta to the west and Monte Brione 376 metres above sea level,to the east. East to Riva del Garda: the village Torbole sul Garda, bordered by Monte Baldo.

Back to our journey to Riva. The following pictures will give you an indication of the myriad sports enjoyed on this lake. Parasailng, windsurfing, catamaran and sailboating are just the few that I captured today.

Coming towards the end of the lake you can see Riva on the left and Torbole on the right.

First...Torbole.

And finally...Riva.

Mobile Blog - Day 3 - Monte Baldo

The joy of this apartment is that we need to walk (10-20 minutes depending on with whom you are walking) into town. There are only two routes. The primary route is relatively flat, but the secondary route, via Fornaci, has a steep decline. This is okay to go down for Peter, but only I could take the road up and that winded me.

The reason I tell you this is the day that I first walked via Fornaci, when I reached the top of the street, I saw an amazing flower, with apricot colored fruit. I didn't have my camera, so today on our excursion to Monte Baldo, I captured the following shot.

The fruit (in the upper left corner of the photo) looks similar to a fruit I have only had in Salerno, Italy. That fruit is called neppole or nebbole. Is this the same? If anyone knows, I sure would like to know.

But I digress. The primary route we take to town goes right past the Funivia (Panoramic Cablecar) that we took to the top of Monte Baldo.

We started our excursion at 10:30. The trip to the summit supposedly only takes 10 minutes but with the queuing in lines, the trip took almost an hour. I can't imagine the wait during peak season.

Monte Baldo, elevation 2,218 m (7,277 ft)
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Monte Baldo is a mountain in the Italian Alps, located in the provinces of Trentino and Verona. Its ridge spans mainly northeast-southwest, and is bounded from south by the highland ending at Caprino Veronese, from west by Lake Garda, from north by the valley joining Rovereto to Nago-Torbole and, from east, the Val d'Adige.

The name derives from the German Wald ("forest"); it appears for the first time in a German map in 1163.

The summit is reachable through a cable car from the nearby town of Malcesine, lying on the Lake Garda.

Mount Baldo is characterized by a geographical identity, a ridge parallel to Lake Garda, which stretches for 40 km, between the lake to the west and Val d'Adige to the east, and on the south it is bounded by plain Caprino and North Valley Loppio.

It was a glorious day, but even with the brilliant sun, there was still a lot of haze. So forgive my pictures if the distant Alps aren't more clearly defined. Remember, this blog is "My views untouched". I don't use filters, cropping or any other photographic tricks. You see what I see. With that, here is what I saw today.

Of course we had lunch on the mountain. We were, as usual, mistaken for German by our waitress, but she quickly understood English when it came time to pay our check. As you can see, I had my Aperol Spritz (actually 2) so when I handed Peter a 50€ bill for our 47.50€ lunch (tax and service included), I said... "You may keep the change, Peter" and our waitress said "Thank you so much!"

Who knew her name was Peter?

Peter wanted me to photograph these flowers. They were truly beautiful...but the color sort of "burns my eye". What do you think?

Okay, almost time for dinner. Ciao!

Mobile Blog - Day 2 - Malcesine & Limone

Sounds like a drink, Malcesine and Limone, no? Actually just a continuing photo blog of Malcesine and also the town 20 minutes across the lake, Limone.

Speaking of drinks though, yesterday I posted a photo with two glasses of orange-colored liquid. Meet the Aperol Spritz. My new favorite afternoon drink. Well anytime drink. I saw people having this at 10:00.

Maybe I had too many yesterday, so I apologize if you had trouble accessing the blog from the email. (You can also access the blog from Facebook, I'm listed under roger.williams@rcn.com) I was so excited about doing a mobile blog that I wasn't sure how to handle the issues of using an iPad. Hopefully I will work out all of the details in the next 2 weeks.

As Lucy and Noemi couldn't make this trip, I have promised a daily update with pictures. So you all benefit.

My description of this apartment was inadequate so here are some photos to visually describe our living situation.

To give you a sense of where this is relative to the mountains and town I think this picture will give you a good idea.

This view is from the lake. The old town of Malcesine is to the right, and our house is somewhere back on the hill and to the left of the Castello Scaligero. We haven't been to the Castello yet because it is up a hill. Peter doesn't like hills, let alone walking too much. So I try an choose activites that don't tax him too much.

Today's activity was the boat to Limone and return. For your viewing pleasure I submit the following:

We had lunch here. Menza-menza. But my Aperol Spritz was buono.

And finally the boat to take us home.

Last night we had lake trout for dinner with a view overlooking the lake. The last photo on yesterday's blog was of the mountains across the lake. I thought the colors were beautiful. But tonight the camera stays home. We are going out for pizza and maybe another Spritz.

Malcesine, Italy - Mobile Update - Day One

Sunday, September 25

Arrived at Marco Polo Airport in Venice after an uneventful flight from New York. I have these great ear phones that cut out most of the sound around me, so I was actually able to sleep for a good part of the flight.

Our vacation landlady arrange for us to be met by taxi driver Ivo from Abusivo Taxi Service, which was a blessing as we were on the road within 20 minutes of landing. The way to Malcesine is via highway through rather flat farmland, so we were able to get some additional sleep on that 2-hour journey.

The landscape changed dramatically when we entered the town of Garda on Lake Garda and made our way slowly up the west coast of Italy's largest lake to our 3-bedroom apartment in Malcesine. Our friends Lucy and Noemi were supposed to be with us on this trip, but unfortunately an illness in the family kept them at home.

The map below shows where we are located to the lake.

A : See Details(Google Map)

The apartment is on the first floor of a 3-story building surrounded by olive trees and surprisingly one fig tree right outside our terrace. I don't know the normal growing season for figs, but it seems strange to have fruit growing at the end of September in the north of Italy.

What makes this area so conducive to olives, fruit and even lemon trees is the micro-climate created by being surrounded by mountains.

As you can see, we are very close to the town, so we spent the day walking. Following are a selection of photos from today's excursion.