Lake Garda day 1

We arrived at Hotel Casimiro late last night, around 9pm. There was a light supper ready and waiting for us after which it was a quick unpack, shower and into bed.

This morning got off to a reasonably leisurely start with breakfast at around 8am followed by a reconnaissance walk around the hotel and surrounding area to get our bearings.  The hotel is situated right on the west bank of Lake Garda beside the little village of Portese.  The area is very picturesque, surrounded by high mountains with beautiful trees and flowers all around.  We did not realise how massive Lake Garda is!  From our location we can only see one fairly small section of the lake and even that seems huge.

Below is a photo of our wing of the hotel with one of the 2 pools on the left.  Our room is on the ground floor, about 4th from the left in the picture.

We spent much of the morning sitting beside the lake and on the terrace outside the bar, under the trees.

We took a walk into the very modest little village and visited a 16th century Church at the top of the hill.  It looked pretty grim from the outside but the inside was beautifully decorated.  Returned to the hotel, had a very refreshing swim in the other pool, followed by more relaxing and reading our books.

Supper in the main restaurant was a very appetizing spread after which we took another walk beside the lake and enjoyed the sunset.  The cooler evening weather was a welcome relief after the high of 30°C earlier in the day.