Day 26 – Lake Garda

I woke up to a message on my phone from the landlord in Florence. Bad news. She had said that they didn’t find anything but wished me luck. Despite the kind gesture, I knew that if it wasn’t in Florence then it would be really lost, yet I still have the feeling that the tickets were in the apartment – the cleaner is just useless. I didn’t let it ruin my day and the girls had all decided yesterday our plans today, so no waiting about.

We arrived at the scooter rental place to rent a vespa or something similar. When we arrived, the place was empty, except for a carefree dog that followed us about. The place looked like a graveyard for boats and I started to doubt how good this place really was. It was the cheapest place to rent bikes, and the greeting we got from the place didn’t try and persuade us otherwise. Finally, a girl turns up in a casual dress and high heels, which she can’t walk in. Showing all the signs of a standard hangover, the girl was clearly out last night and did not want to be here. She took ages to get us sorted and couldn’t find any helmets, walking about at a turtle’s pace.

At last, we were all sorted and ready to go. We had three bikes (my girlfriend and I had one with the girls splitting 2 and 1). We were given no instructions from Mrs. Hungover and she was letting us out on the road with no experience or practice. When a car arrived, this old lady had spotted us and obviously saw the problem. For example, one of the girls had just driven into a boat trying to turn, and I was struggling to keep the motorbike upright with two of us on it. The girl had changed our bikes and the three girls got lower engine bikes, my girlfriend and I had to stick with the big one, not because I’m obviously such a great driver, but because there were no smaller ones left.

The last bit of advice we were given was to “look after the girl who drove into the boat”, not because they wanted the bike back but because they didn’t want her to hurt herself. Reassuring advice all around. Our convoy left and headed to the nearest supermarket car park. Led by myself, we arrived with no problems and did a couple of turns and reverses to get better. There was a gathering of workmen who had stopped to watch us. Originally, I thought that they had been watching us because we were so bad, but when we left, I realised that they had just painted the car parking lines everywhere and we were driving all over them. Sorry I guess.  

My plan was to drive north, find a back road up into the hills and sit by the clear mountainous lakes that were peppered around the main lake. The straight roads weren’t a problem but when we got to a T-Junction whilst turning, I didn’t want to/couldn’t slow down and I just kept accelerating towards the curb. My girlfriend and I both fell off the bike onto the road but thankfully the only damage were in my ears, a result of abuse and complaints from my girlfriend. She wasn’t happy and didn’t even want to be on a bike anymore but I persuaded her to remain positive and we’ll see again in a while.

Past the next two towns, I suggested we park outside a toy shop where we could check if everyone was alright and discuss the possibility of having lunch. This stop proved to be an absolute disaster. My girlfriend feared for her life after being on the bike with me for that long, crying and making me look like a bad driver… Additionally, one of the other bikes wouldn’t start and we had to ring a mechanic to come and fix it. Whilst they waited for the mechanic, the rest of us went to the shop down the road to get some food for lunch. When we arrived back, the mechanic had already been and gone. He turned the bike on and it worked as normal so he left without doing anything. Obviously there was something wrong with the bike but the mechanic refused to work out what it was and said it was fine. Let’s hope it was. 

One of the girls had also bought themselves some swimming goggles (just incase) and we all availed of the shop toilets. After some food, we were on the road again and I took them up to the next town, where hopefully we could start going up the mountain now. We all wished we had a go pro for this day and we even thought it would have been to time-lapse the whole trip – bit of an effort though.

We turned off the main road and started driving up the small back streets, becoming smaller and smaller until we scared that they weren’t even roads anymore. Everyone voted to go back down to the main road and try the next hill, which we did and it proved to be no better than the first. They were very steep and even our powerful bike was struggling, the girls were struggling even more. We all just decided to forget this whole idea and we went down to the waterfront, parked up and used the pier to sunbathe and jump into the water. There was a beach right beside us but you had to pay to use it so we were all happy that we had the better deal.

A couple of hours there and we were ready to go on to our last destination of the day – a club. No we weren’t going to party now, but my girlfriend had spotted this really nice beach club on the bus from the train station, and we were going to enquire about the party tonight. When we finally found it, we drove into the car park and left our bikes beside the black Ferrari and yellow Ferrari and Lamborghini and Porsche… When we went into the beach part, everyone was dressed in their fancy gucci and designer clothes and they had all began to stare at us…all wearing our wrinkled and sweaty clothes from Primark. The girls were so scared to go in so I did, asked the barman about what was happening tonight and how much it would be. There was a party at midnight and it cost €15 for girls and €20 for boys. I don’t think we would be going there tonight then.

My girlfriend and I split up from the girls after this stop as I needed to go to the police station and report that my interrail tickets were either lost or stolen. The girls went to the shop to get food for dinner whilst we were doing this. When we got to the station in Desenzano, the police officer couldn’t understand what we meant and it took my girlfriend to act out train movements and a “Choo Choo” sound for him to understand. It didn’t take us too long as he basically just did whatever I said and we were on our way back. My girlfriend had become increasingly less scared throughout the day and deep down I think she would have liked to have it for longer. It sure was easier to get around and go to the shops.

The last thing to do before dinner was to get petrol and leave the bikes back. The fuel was only €16 for all three bikes (again, how good are we with fuel consumption?) and when we got back to the rental place, nobody was there again. We waited for ages and finally someone turned up. Everything was fine except that we were charged €20 for calling out the mechanic because he said that nothing was wrong. Even so, €20 was too much as we had travelled more than 5 times that distance for €5. There was no use in arguing and we had to return to our apartment in a disappointed mood.

The rest of the night, we sat by the pool and I had to ring my mum about the tickets. The end result was that I had to buy another interrail pass to be sent to my friend in Milan, and that they would refund me then when I get home. Although it was sorted, it would still be a hassle because I would need to buy the tickets until Milan and then keep all receipts, police reports and pass to send to them after.