Paid straight away to get it cleared. Instead of €48.50, we got a discount as promised and paid just €35 for the two nights. 15 for my first night and 20 for the second with Catherine. The chap that sorted it all out for us talked about the UK. He'd visited Scotland two years ago. Said it never stopped raining but he loves his whiskey so thoroughly enjoyed it. Next time I come I'll have to smuggle a miniature over for him.
Breakfast down by the lake then lounged about for a few hours. Eventually left about 3.30pm. Catherine wanted a blast through the Bond tunnels so we rode round to Limone then back to Riva del Garda for ice cream.
Catherine now informs me that we're stopping at every opportunity to sample Italian ice cream. She's got a point, it is pretty damn good.
Took the S45b north from Riva to Trento. Great road but was better the other day when it was quieter and cooler. It's hitting 38 degrees this afternoon which is pretty intense.
The short section of the S12 between Trento and the S43 is dull and tedious but the S43 to Cles is much more like it. The Italian chap who recommended this road wasn't wrong. The traffic can be a pain but get past it and the road's lovely. There was a lot of slow site traffic for construction work though. Stopped near Cles for quick picnic. There's an enormous dam on this road. We found a picnic spot overlooking the river below.
After Cles the road is awesome. All the way up to and over Passo del Tonale is faultless. The pass is quite low but the views are still great. More importantly though, the roads and corners are fast and smooth.
Dropped down into Edolo and took the first campsite west of the town. Nice little spot. Pretty basic but the people are nice and at e18 it worked out cheaper than the one down the road at Aprica. The plots are bigger too.
It was also much cooler than Garda, although by 8am the next day it was up past 30 degrees again. The guy asked whether we wanted a spot in the morning sun or the shade. We didn't need to know any Italian to communicate our preference. He saw the look on our faces and gave us a nice spot in the shade. Allegedly, although by 7am the sun had completely cleared the mountains so it didn't really make any difference.
After pitching up we went over to the bar. Not cheap at €2 for small tins of Italian pils, but they were showing old reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard, dubbed in Italian, which was quite amusing. We sat outside instead and looked over the maps. Catherine definitely wants to do the Stelvio Pass again which I'm more than happy with. It's just up the road from here so we can tick that off tomorrow.
Amusingly, for everyone else in the bar, Catherine then got attacked by the biggest beetle I've ever seen in my life. When I say attacked, I mean it walked on her foot. She screamed and kicked it off. It landed about a foot away then sat staring her out with it's huge pincers open in attack mode. It was genuinely quite intimidating. Some old Italian boy came over and told her it's harmless. Apparently they live in the greenery, like where we're pitched, but do fly around although the worst they'll do is give you a nasty nip. Bloody thing looks like it would have your arm off. We thought he was gonna gently pick it up, to demonstrate a point, but instead he gave it a huge boot. It shot off the balcony directly towards a family sat below eating their tea.
To calm her down, I treated Catherine to that complimentary bottle of wine that Luca gave us the other day. It was probably slightly warmer than recommended but the chap behind the bar lent us a huge ice pack. We dropped it in the top box, filled it with water and made an improvised wine bucket. Still didn't do much for the wine. It was OK though. White sparkling wine, but certainly not too sweet.
Just as we started cooking tea, all the campsite lights went out. It was about 11.30pm. There is no ambient light around here so the sky was crystal clear. Not a cloud up there which made it quite a spectacle.
All was good. At least until morning when Catherine got attacked by another of those damn beetles over breakfast. Oh, how she laughed!
131 miles
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