Salò!

On our last full day we visited the small town of Salò, a name which caused much tittering amongst the "real French" (as opposed to me - the import). You see Salò is pronounced the same as the French word salaud, which means "b@stard"! Little things please little minds I guess, but I shouldn't laugh because many years ago, on the way up to La Clusaz, there used to be a sign advertising the services of a local mechanic called Gérard Bastard and it always tickled me to imagine if I'd married into that family, can you just picture me introducing "my husband" to family members - "this is Gérard and these are the little b@strds"! So I guess I'm no better than anyone else in the end!

Our guide showed us round one area of town and then those of us that wanted to wander off (i.e. me) could do so. She did compliment us all on being punctual and that induced her to recount one of her stories about working with a group of Sicilians many years ago - to which she said "never again". She said they were always late and on one occasion, around midnight, a group of them decided they were hungry so they broke into the hotel kitchen and started cooking something to eat! That little stunt got the entire group kicked out of the hotel in the middle of the night and she has never worked with Sicilians since!

The castle at Salò

I just managed to catch a glimpse
of a bridal party heading into
their reception!

Inside the one and only church I
wanted to visit at this point!

After lunch we headed out by boat to the Simione peninsula. Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the beautiful Villa Isola del Garda (I think what would have interested me the most were the beautiful botanical gardens) as our driver was waiting for us on the other side of the lake to take us to a wine tasting!

Villa Isola del Garda!

This cave (that's what they call the place where they produce the wine) was a big disappointment, which was weird because whenever I've visited a cave I've usually found something I liked, but not this time. I think the feeling was pretty general too because out of 47 visitors I only saw three cases of wine being loaded into the bus's hold, plus a few individual bottles that people brought onto the bus. I tell you, this vacation was definitely looking like one of the cheapest ever with me only spending €10 so far on a wall calendar!!!!

When we got back to our hotel I got chatting with a group of Chinese tourists who had arrived the night before. They were apparently leaving the next day and I got the impression they were going to "do Europe in a week"! Errr, good luck with that!