Goodbye Massimeno, and our last night in Italy

---

It was a sad day today as we left Massimeno and journeyed to our final stop in Italy, Milano.

We were extremely fortunate to have had a beautiful first day in Massimeno, experienced their best snow fall for year on the second day and then have the weather clear up for our drive to Milano.

We packed up our stuff, gave the apartment a quick clean and prepared our lunch before saying final goodbyes.

The scenery looked amazing as we drove through the valley and we decided to head towards Riva del Garda to view the stunning Lago di Garda. We were not dissapointed. We climbed over one set of mountains and descended into another valley, this one filled with the most enormous alpine lake you could imagine. We ate our panini overlooking Riva and the lake from a roadside lookout with picnic tables. What more can we say? Check out the photos.

We stopped at Riva for an espresso and a gelati. Riva is a big tourist and sports-oriented holiday destination. There are cyclists everywhere (as there are in the Trentino region in general) and there were many people out on the lake in their yachts.

After our break we headed through Nago-Torbole and up the other side of the valley and over to the Autostrade for our drive into Milano. The view was even more spectacular on the other side as we could see the full size of the lake (and the North end of the lake is a lot smaller than the south end). As we travelled through this next valley we were surrounded by vines carrying the grapes for the Marzimeno wine we had enjoyed earlier in the week.

After spending a few days in beautiful alpine countryside, Milano is not much to look at. It's a big city and we don't have much time here. We took a stroll around our hotel to find dinner, do some shopping and also scout out the train station. Nick wore his AC Milan jersey - which was a big hit with the locals. Wherever we went, he got noticed and we heard "Forza Mila!"

As we write this, it has just started raining again, outside. Hopefully it clears up before our walk to the station in the morning.

---

Photos

Our view at Lunch
Not a bad first view of Lago di Garda over Riva.

Milano
Piazza Duca D'Aosta in the background at at the top of Via Vittor Pisani. We'll be catching our train to Lucerne from here tomorrow.