Rating the Accommodations - Garda, Italy

July 4-6, 2010, 3 nights.

Hotel Giotto di Lorenzi Ezio
Via Carducci, 17
37016 Garda

http://www.holidaycheck.co.uk/hotel-Travel+pictures_Hotel+Giotto-ch_ub-hid_35146.html

We don't even have any of our own photos of Hotel Giotto. Not because there was anything wrong with it. It was actually pretty good. I guess by this point we were tired, and a little disappointed with the whole Lake Garda vibe.

Supposedly, Lake Garda's considered Italy's most beautiful lake. It may be one of the largest, but Lake Como's certainly its equal in terms of beauty. And we didn't even see Lugano or Maggiore.

Our enthusiasm was dampened (melted) by the persistent heat and humidity after we'd dropped down from the Dolomites. In hindsight, we should have remained in one, or several, of the northern visits a day, each, longer--Bormio, Arabba, Cortina. Maybe even Lake Como.

So, the next trip should be in September after the July and August invasions. May is too early as you run the risk of some of the high famed passes being closed to snow. Stelvio and Gavia were barely opened in time for our visit. Gavia had to be cleared of snow for the Giro and we heard that the Stelvio had been opened just a week before our arrival. In France, too, this holds true. The Galibier was closed due to lingering winter snow drifts. By September all the prior winter's snow is long gone. That's not to say you don't run the risk of new snow, but it's a bit early for much of that to be happening. Although I will say that a Facebook entry today, September 27, 2010, from our hosts in Bourg d'Oisans, the Coldray's, said that it snowed there in the last few days.

Anyway, I'm off topic.

We found Hotel Giotto by visiting the local tourism office. They were extremely helpful. A nice English-speaking woman helped us narrow down what were looking for. We paid a 10 euro fee, which was applied to our hotel fees, and she found us several possibilities. It worked out very well.

The hotel itself was nice, it had AC (that was an absolute requirement), it was clean and had a nice view of the lake and of Garda itself. The breakfast was one of the more disappointing. There was plenty to eat, the choices weren't as good as we'd become accustomed to.

The staff was nice enough, though almost impossible to communicate with. We managed to get through without any controversies or problems until it came time to check-out and pay. They accepted cash only, so we had to make a walk down to the ATM to draw some funds. Not a big deal.

They had a computer with internet access, but it wasn't readily available. There was an internet cafe nearby that we used a few times, it was expensive considering the speeds--atrociously slow. Seemed to work only half the time. It was exasperating.

I documented one of the two rides we did in Garda, Peri to Fossi. The only other ride we did was out to Sirmione, which was on the tip of a narrow peninsula that jutted into the lake from its southern shore.

We left Pagnano for Lake Garda on a Sunday figuring that the crowds would have been dying down on a Sunday afternoon. Wrong! The road into the area was bumper-to-bumper with cars all trying to get down to the lake. I assume it was just to be able to get into the water, because the lake did not offer any respite from the heat and humidity we'd encountered since coming south from Cortina d'Ampezzo.

Traffic, people, heat, humidity. Lake Garda failed to impress. It was pretty, summer's not the time to go. And the traffic! Oh, the traffic!! Man. The ride we took to Sirmione was a nightmare. A constant flow of traffic, fast-moving, narrow roads, no shoulder, back-ups in the towns created near chaos. The roads were so narrow that when there were back-ups there wasn't enough room to get by on the right. Most Italian riders would ride on the left--exposing themselves to oncoming traffic and left turners from both directions. We didn't see any accidents, though.

The portion of the lake we rode was not a cyclist's paradise. It's a big lake. Maybe some of the other portions of the lake are better. My guess is that anything on the shoreline was the same and you would need to head up into the hills away from the coast line to find decent riding (like Peri to Fosse--although that required a drive of almost an hour to get to the ride start--though you could certainly start from further away if we'd had more gumption and knowledge of the area). To be fair, the same held true at Lake Como. It was cooler at Lake Como, though, and they have the Tour of Lombardy!