It's 6pm on Friday, Bruce's holidays have officially begun!
Bruce and Carsten picked up the girls and I and we all headed off to Jen's and Uli's for dinner and swimming for the kids. Great fun was had by all.
On Saturday evening Yen's and Uli babysat Shannon and Olivia so Bruce and I could go out for dinner.
How amazing is that?!?!?
We headed for the other side of the Rhine. You drive onto a ferry and voila, you are there. First we tried to get into this vineyard, Schloss Vollard. I can't tell you how beautiful it was. You drive through rolling hills covered in vineyards on an old country road and arrive at this small castle, a pond runs through it, just gorgeous! Unfortunately for us there was a wedding being held there so we had to move on. I'm glad we didn't know ahead of time or I wouldn't have had the opportunity to see this place. We ended up at a great little restaurant right on the Rhine. There was a German flag in my line of sight as we watched the boats on the river. It was a great reminder of where we were...
We were on the road by 6am the next morning.
Lake Garda here we come.
It's an eight hour drive, but it's through the Swiss Alps so it's not so hard to take. Especially for me the resident non driver!!! We had visited the local farmers market in Ingelheim and picked up some local delicacies and packed a picnic. we enjoyed it on the shores of Lake Como. Sadly we did not bump into George Clooney, but I felt his presence close by! What a beautiful place. It is this fantastically huge lake nestled in the mountains with ancient castles and manors all over the place. I'm not sure what I did to get this lucky but I think I should keep it up!!!
The drive was pretty uneventful other than the fact that Lola completely falls apart when she leaves Germany and her navigational skills truly suffer. We finally arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon.
At first we thought that our room had yet another European style bathroom. The girls were definitely happy that there was no bidet! I swear they think Bruce and I are making up the function of a bidet! Anyways Bruce finally figured out that we had a handicap accessible room.
This is the one and only time, so far, that we have had trouble getting out of the room. Some wierd lock system had all four of us frantically trying to get the door unlocked! I figure we were at the pool within about 10 minutes of our arrival, maybe twelve minutes because of the damn lock, cold beer soon followed!
We were staying in the town of Desenzano a small tourist town just outside of Sirmione. Sirmione is the Port Carling of Lake Garda. It is such a German destination that all the menus are in Italian, Englsih and German. It's an amazing little town. Lots of great stores, markets, restaurants and ice cream shops. And the lake front, OMG. No one, and I mean no one makes a better cappicuino than the Italians. Not to mention the ice cream... For dinner we had this amazing salad with lettuce, tomatoes, pesto and walnuts, I'll be recreating that one, that's for sure. We ate looking over the water as the sunset, not so bad!
More to follow soon...
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