Struggling with temperatures of 40C+ we headed in the direction of Lake Garda which we mistakenly thought would provide some respite from the heat and some fresher air.  How wrong we were!

On the way, we decided to take a quick look at Alessandria for the simple reason that Flavio felt sentimentally compelled to visit it as an Italian Alexandrian from Egypt. First, our route took us through Margarita, Moglia Nera (meaning ‘Black Wife’!), Pollenzo and Asti, where we stopped for a light lunch.  Asti was pleasant enough, though not remarkable, but by the time we got to Alessandria it was the hottest time of the afternoon and we could see from our weather App that Alessandria had clocked up some of the highest temperatures in the whole of Italy – and this during a heatwave.  We were physically only able to give it a cursory look but in any case, when we asked to be directed to the most interesting part of town, there really wasn’t anything of any note. Stopping at a pharmacist, we were told that (unlike the Egyptian Alexandria) Alessandria got its name from its founder, Pope Alexander II.  Parking the car at the open-air car park (essential for our Brenda being a ‘high-top’ and not always easy to find) we saw an old man standing in the sun next to the payment machines, hunched over and looking as though he was about to faint.  We went over to ask if he was alright and if we could ring someone to come and pick him up.  He said he was OK and that he was suffering from an ulcer.  He refused to move out of the sun and sit on a bench in the shade but accepted some water.  When we came back after our visit (must have been an hour or so) we were amazed to find him still hunched over in the same spot in the unbearable heat.  A man sitting across the way in the shade explained that he was there every day hoping people paying for the parking would spare some ‘spiccioli’.

Lake Garda was a popular destination for Romans as it is now for modern-day Italians as well as German and Dutch holiday-makers, especially Germans.  The campsite was lovely but large, quite pricey and very full.  The heat and humidity were oppressive, with no respite and not a whiff of air when you most needed it at the end of the day – it was as if the lake hit the doldrums at around 6pm and though the temperature eventually went down a few degrees by the small hours, it was very difficult to sleep.  Flavio even ended up lying down at the end of the pontoon over the lake at 3am to try and catch a hint of cool air. The only respite was our swims in the lake which mercifully was still cool, being quite deep – they became quite frequent out of sheer necessity.

On the second night walked to the local village, Manerba del Garda, for an ‘Italian experience’ only to find the village full of German and Dutch tourists and the market full of stalls run by Africans selling mostly goods from China and India.  Surprisingly, we were having trouble finding any place to eat so we stopped to ask a couple of sophisticated-looking elderly local women sitting and chatting outside their homes for advice.  In a manner which seemed vaguely familiar they answered in a lengthy, sceptical and grumbling but ultimately not terribly helpful sort of way and finally suggested a place that had changed management recently down the road but whether it was any good or indeed whether we’d find it open or not, they really couldn’t say – in fact everything pointed to them having serious doubts, both about this and very probably pretty much anything else we might have asked them about – it all felt so familiar!  (Never expect a short answer in Italy!)

We walked to the edge of town until we found the restaurant.  Mercifully, it had air conditioning, which is surprisingly difficult to find. The homemade pasta was superb and Matteo the chef came out to greet us and explain that he was trying to keep alive the local cuisine of the region.  The wine too was a new experience – a white Lugana from the village of Desenzano (the next village along) which was was very pleasant indeed and matched our pasta dishes of ‘ravioloni with a chicken and rabbit filling’ and ‘tagliatelle al pomodoro’ perfectly.

Booked ferry to Dubrovnik as we decided we would drive to Greece via Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia (cautiously bypassing Albania although we were tempted).