2nd September - Lake Como to Lake Garda

Woke up and enjoyed breakfast in the sunshine before leaving for Lake Garda.

We left magic lake and Billy ended up driving all day as we decided to go via the toll roads.  Up until now we had kept to motorways and 'A' roads without paying any tolls.  My brother in law had advised that we should use toll roads as we would never get anywhere.  We set the sat nav for Lake Garda but did not avoid toll roads.  We made a mistake by not checking the map against the sat nav directions.
For some reason we ended up in Monza where there were major roadworks and an accident on the toll road,  we were stuck in Monza not knowing what to do.  We did not have a clue where we were as we could not read the traffic signs.  We ended up going round in circles trying to find our way out.  This made us both very fraught.  In the end we decided to head back to Bergamo, the last major town we were heading for before we ended up in Monza. 

We eventually arrived at San Francesco campsite (recommended to us by my sister) at about 5pm to find that they only had a pitch for one night and we would have to leave by 10am.  The cost for this would be 48 euros, so we decided to head off somewhere further up the lake.

I had done some research before leaving and knew there were a couple of sites in Manerba del Garda, so we put GPS co-ordinates of Belvedere campsite into the sat nav and headed off . On checking the Sat Nav it looked as if we were heading South instead of North.   I kept saying to Billy we should be heading North but he kept going until we started driving through cornfields and the we could not see the lake anymore, then he realised that perhaps we were going the wrong way.  He eventually stopped and  we then entered Manerba del Garda into the Sat Nav and were told to turn around. Not a good day for relying on the sat nav. 

We eventually arrived at Belvedere campsite but they did not have any free pitches but pointed us to the campsite nextdoor - La Rocca .
They did not have a lot of pitches left at La Rocca and the ladies looking after reception did not speak a lot of English but they gave us a map of the site and pointed us to a pitch through a tunnel.

We walked through the tunnel and did not know where we were heading but could not believe our eyes when we saw the pitch.
It was a lovely spot with a beautiful view of the lake.
The time we had wasted driving around was well worth it.

We pitched up alongside a a German family and got talking to them as they were leaving in the morning and wondered if we were putting an awning up.  They were very friendly and told us where we could get a lovely pizza close by or further afield in Montanelli. We were introduced to Sandra, Christian and Maria. Maria told me that Montanelli was about 5km away. Christian then handed Billy the keys to his scooter for us to borrow his scooter to do go and get one. Billy declined the keys. It is not often that this would happen in England! A complete stranger handing you the keys to their scooter.
We finished setting up and went for a walk.   100 yards from the site was a very small port with a couple of restaurants and bars. Just what we needed.

Relaxing at the port

We ate at Santa Clara, half a pizza each followed by a flavourless spaghetti carbonara and then walked back to the van for a Baileys on ice, admiring the view. A very hot sticky night.