The Journey Between Salzburg And Lake Garda

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We woke up to a really relaxed al fresco breakfast, kids playing in the garden and glorious weather. It was time to change from our pumps to sandals, only realising we had left A, J and Ks at the castle, so the morning was spent buying new Crocs and sandals for everyone!

By lunch time we eventually got away, only to have to stop about 20 mins into the journey for our picnic lunch in a little Alpine farming village just off the motorway. This was going to be a long day and a long drive, and at the end of it we can say this picnic lunch was the highlight. (Oh apart from driving through the mountains). Asha kept asking when will we get to the mountains, as she kept looking at the ones in the horizon, she just couldn’t get that we were on some too, and got quiet irritated with us when we tried to explain this. “No Mummy and Daddy, I mean when will we get to the real mountains”. Jay was tired and actually slept for a bit of this journey, and when he woke he started to complain of tummy ache - and that really was the start of something.

We stopped at Brenner, what struck us was the almost immediate change when crossing the border between Austrian style and Italian style. The geranium window boxes disappeared to be replaced with cheap leather hand bag shops. We tried to buy our first Italian ice-cream, but ended up with Magnums. The mountains changed too, the green pasture land of the Alps changed into the Rocky dolomites, which I have to say I loved. However the rocky steep sides of the mountains forced everything into the valley, so the motorway run was full of light industry disappointingly. We did have a lot of fun going through lots and lots of tunnels, with the kids making it a drill to say ”hip hip horray” every time we came out of one, only for it to be seconds, sometimes before we were in another.

We got to Lake Garda late, to check into the most decidedly poor hotel “Europa”, should have known from the name really. No chocolates on the pillow much to the kids disappointment, a rather surly Italian woman at reception who kept muttering something about “Bambini’s”, and a meal that had obviously been designed for the other residents that had no teeth. ………….. and then there was poor Jay, by this time we realised he was constipated and badly, he was hoping up and down, saying his tummy hurt and his pooh hurt, but he couldn’t get it out. Poor little man had a pretty bad night, but that’s what comes Jay of a only eating potatoes and bread.

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