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We met in Roverto. The night before, while in my unit behind the woman’s clothing store in Bolzano, I got a message. It was from my wife, Holly. For the past ten days, we had been separated. She had been dancing her way across southern Italy, while I had been doing all the things I wrote about in the previous two Stray Thoughts. The next day we were to reunite. It would not be the only reunion that day.
The plan had been that Jon, Alex, and Rupert – my brother, sister-in-law, and two year old nephew respectively – would pick me up from somewhere in Bolzano, then the four of us would drive together to Riva del Garda, where Holly would meet us, having public transported her way from Ravello, and where we’d all be spending the next five nights together. Mostly, this is how it went, except for one small change. Jon and Alex didn’t pick me up. Instead, I went to Roverto.
The message was an invite. Holly’s lengthy trek from Ravello to Riva del Garda would see her passing through Roverto at 1pm. Roverto was only a fifty-two minute train ride from Bolzano and so Holly was letting me know in case I wanted to join her. I did. I quickly messaged Jon and Alex to let them know of the change in planes and then jumped online and bought a train ticket. Ten hours later, I was on that train, rushing towards a small town I knew nothing about to reunite with my wife.
The sun, thankfully, was out that day. I arrived in Roverto two hours before Holly would, mostly because, why not? It was that or kill more time in my unit and I had seen enough of its interior during the past two rainy days. While I’m sure Roverto had some wonderful places to see, two hours, and with a big backpack on your back, isn’t the ideal condition to visit them. Instead, I walked down the centre of town and then followed my feet until I found a park to sit in.
It was interesting, sitting in that park. I think it safe to say I was the only tourist. At the very least, I was the only one who had brought their luggage to the park, which I rested against as I read a book, ate an apple, and people watched. Around me, big groups of children’s birthdays were happening. There were also the resident teenagers, in small packs and baggy clothes, plodding around the park laughing together, and a few couples sitting together in the sun. It was nice. I had found a little pocket of local life. A reflection of the same life found back in my own country, just in a language I
didn’t understand. For all of these people, this was their Saturday morning. Normal and nice and routine. Whereas from my perspective, it was a visit to exotic foreign town. A small stop on a big adventure. A place of such randomness that I didn’t even know I would be spending time there until the day before. I held both perspectives in my head, enjoying their dichotomy, and wondered what my own suburb would look like to an outsider's eyes.
Time ticked away, and soon I was beginning the slow walk back to the train station, taking some photos as I went. I got there, found Holly’s train on the arrivals board, and went to her platform to wait. I half read my book as my excitement grew. A train pulled up. Not hers. It let off some passengers, took others in, and left. Another couple of minutes passed and then the long lumbering train that contained my wife arrived. I jumped up, lugged my bag onto my back and did my best to spot a familiar face amongst the exiting crowd. And then there she was. Flushed and smiling and wearing a backpack, a mirror of my own. We embraced, happy to see each other, each with so much to tell; not to mention get to our next accommodation and rest.
First though we had to:
Find the bus to Riva del Garda - This proved to be more difficult than you might imagine thanks to some ongoing road works and which ended with us making friends with some peppy senior south africans out on an adventure of their own.
Ride the bus to Riva del Garda - Which was cramped and crowded and standing room only. Here, Holly and I told each other our stories, standing in the isle surrounded by people, and with me unfortunately becoming more and more nauseous as we went thanks to the twin combination of standing backwards and windy roads.
Kill some time while we waited for our accommodation to be ready - We settled into a welcoming restaurant, the RistoPizza Hotel, which we would end up visiting a number of times across our time in Riva Del Garda as tourists are wont to do when visiting somewhere new.
Check in - It was easy enough to locate our accommodation and our hosts were kind and friendly, the only problem was we spoke no Italian and they spoke no English. Luckily though, in another reminder that we live in the future, we had an interpreter for the whole interaction: Google Translate.
That done, we had a nap and waited for Jon, Alex, and Roo’s arrival and our next reunion.
It came with a phone call. They were on the street but having trouble locating the house. After a minute of us trying to describe it from inside, we chose to just go out and greet them. Only one problem, we couldn’t get out. Despite having been shown through only an hour or so previous, we could not figure out how to exit the accommodation. Now before you judge us too harshly, let me explain. This place had an elevator at the front of the house, one that from inside looked an awful lot like a front door, and so problem number one was that we were trying to open the back of an elevator. Problem number two was that the actual front door didn’t open with a door handle, but with a button that wasn’t entirely obvious. So, we basically made fools of ourselves until one of the owners caught our distress and showed us how to get out of the building. Then we were on the street and I got the joyous experience of my two year old nephew bolting toward me with a huge grin on his face and his arms held wide for a hug. Then it was Jon and Alex’s turn.
We were reunited.
The town of Riva del Garda is first and foremost, beautiful. A mix of faux tropical and old world Italian, with tall colourful buildings, winding cobbled streets, and located around the tip of lake Garda. Riva, as it’s more colloquially known, is a tourist town and so has that strange feel of joyous temporary life with most of the local businesses catering to tourists in one way or another. While we were there it was sunny and bright and while the water was much too cold to ever consider swimming in, we nonetheless managed to get the feel of being on a summer holiday.
That first day, as Jon and Alex and Roo settled in, Holly and I decided to go and look at the lake the town was named for. The walk from our accommodation to the main street took about fifteen minutes or so and was one we would take many times during our stay there. The main street, Viale Rovereto, was to me reminiscent of walking along the main streets of the beach towns here in Australia. Lined with busy sidewalks and palm trees, and full of hotels and restaurants, bars and shops, all of which entirely hid the view of the lake hiding behind them. We found a path that snaked past all this infrastructure and exited out to our first view of the lake.
It is something. The water is first steel blue and contemplative before it shifts to aqua then green, becoming more vibrant with each change in light. Low mountains border each side of the lake which stretches off into the distance, wide and long enough to fool you into thinking it could almost be an ocean. It has a short cobble beach just before the water and behind that is a lawn of lush welcoming grass inviting you to sit a while.
Side note here, let’s talk about how much better grass is than sand when accompanying a body of water. It is soft and cooling when need be, absorbs any water that may drip off of you, and unlike the incalculable grains of sand that will stick to you and your possessions when you leave a beach, the blades of grass have the good grace to stay where they are when you pack up and go. Add to this that you can have trees growing from the grass to provide some oh so necessary shade and it’s not even a competition. I am pretty luke warm when it comes to a beach day, but a lake day is right up my alley.
On Day Two of our reunion, we did some exploring. We walked at the pace of a two year old into the old town to marvel at the buildings and wind through its streets, stopping to enjoy a coffee and a pistachio croissant. Then we made our slow way back up along the lake, before stopping to dip our feet in, look at some incredibly laidback and confident ducks, and do some reading/play on some play equipment. We then returned to our accommodation for a chill night in as the days sun got replaced for rain and lightning.
On Day Three, we went on a boat, and in so doing made ourselves a catchphrase. The day started much as the previous one had. We got ourselves ready, dawdled down to the old town, and made our way through it to the dock beyond. As we approached our boat, I carried Roo, mostly as a way to speed things up. He is two years old and bilingual, with his little brain presently in the process of completing the mammoth task of trying to learn and untangle two languages, German and English. Because of this, he speaks a bit of both as well as a language all his own, an adorable garbled mix of words. This won’t last long. I expect by the next time we visit he will have mastered his words, but for now he sits in that space where whatever he says is inherently a bit cute. I was rambling away at him, commenting on the things around us and the day ahead, barely paying attention to what I was saying, just doing what I could to entertain him; right up until he parroted one of my sentences back at me. The line in question? ‘Holy moley, we’re on a boat!’ Is it a good catchphrase? Not particularly, but he said it with such a level of toddler excitement and enthusiasm, that it instantly gained quotable status. Add to this that he also misquoted it nine times out of ten as ‘moley moley, we’re on a boat!’ and it quickly became the saying of the trip. I expect it’ll eventually become the kind of thing that we’ll one day say to a teenage Rupert who will then roll his eyes while wondering at the strangeness of adults. It should be fun.
With those words declared and repeated, our boat pulled away from the dock and we were out on the open water. That same water came splashing down all around us, not from the sky, but from the boat's canvas top, as it had collected there from the previous night's rain and was now being displaced thanks to the boat's movement. We managed to dodge most of it and then turned and watched Riva del Garda shrink as we moved away from it.
The day was sunny and gentle, the wind off the water crisp and clean. Around us the low rocky mountains, spotted with bridges and buildings, grew and receded as we first approached then pulled away from them. I snapped photos in a desperate attempt to capture it all, but never quite managing to.
We were heading for Limonaia, a small cliffside tourist town only part way up the giant lake. As the name would suggest there is a theme to this town as they have fully embraced the humble lemon. In the town's many stores you will find the round yellow citrus fruits readily available to buy in every form of lemon product imaginable. It is also present in the town's decor, showing up on signs and tiles, curtains and carpets. Limonaia is the kind of town made for a day visit. It is all souvenir shops and places to eat, bustling with people slowly walking its steep layered streets. We did exactly what was expected of us in a town like this. We had a bite to eat, bought a few little things, and wandered around all its nooks and crannies, ensuring we had laid eyes on it all before stopping to allow the boy to have a play on some play equipment at the top of the cliff (holy moley, we’re in a playground!). We got the return boat back to Riva, and Holly and I spent the afternoon at a lakeside bar, reading and writing. That night, we left Jon and Rupert at the house, and Alex, Holly, and I treated ourselves to dinner at a castle, only a short walk from our accommodation.
Having looked at the lake, relaxed by it, and boated on it, on Day Four it was time to walk around it; or at least walk around a tiny fraction of it because as mentioned the lake is fricking huge. We went our separate ways. Alex, Jon, and Roo went to a theme park called Gardaland full of rides, aquariums, and creepy pig statues, while Holly and I once more walked up and through the old town, past the dock and to the beginning of a walking and cycling track beyond.
The day was warm and all but cloudless, with only a few small puffs peeking out over the mountain tops. The track beneath our feet was hard and rocky and bounced the day's heat back at us. We were quickly sweating as we made our way along this track which ran at a slow consistent incline, up and along the rim of the mountain line that surrounded the west side of the lake. It felt good. With the steady incline we could feel the burn in our legs and a warmth in our chest as our breath deepened. We got a good rhythm going, and got to enjoy the occasional reprieve whenever the path passed through a dark and cool tunnel which burrowed into the side of the mountains. We walked until the track moved inland, then turned around and took the same trail home, the return journey noticeably quicker thanks to what was now a decline.
That night, it was Alex’s turn to stay home with the little lad while Holly, Jono, and I went in search of somewhere to eat. What we found was a faux-English pub at the top of a shopping centre which was also a Mexican restaurant. And if that sounds like a confusing jumbled mess of a place, that’s because that’s exactly what it was. It had the feel of an establishment someone set up to one day be a franchise but which never took off, and for good reason. Still, the beer was cold, the company excellent, and the burritos pretty much exactly what you’d expect coming from the kitchen of a fake English pub/mexican restaurant located at the top of a shopping centre in northern Italy. We had a blast.
Then it was Day Five. A final day together for this short lived reunion. It was a doozy. The five of us squeezed into J and A’s car and then headed out along the lake, circling it until we got to our destination. A chairlift. I have been on many a chairlift across the course of this trip, and this one was undoubtedly the busiest. The line for it ran up and around a few flights of stairs, which seemed intense, until, after our day was done and we came back down, we saw that it had increased to running around the stairs, through the building, back and forth through a barricaded waiting area, and along the street. Turns out, we had accidentally timed it very well.
We eventually got into the chairlift and rose up and into the sky, then exited out to cries of ‘holy moley, we’re on a mountain,’ and some epic views. The scene was picturesque. Blue skies, green mountain fields, and the lake stretching away below us to still disappear into the distance. We felt excited and silly, a feeling that often seems to overcome me when taking in the ridiculous vastness and beauty of a mountain vista. We took photos, made jokes, and ambled along the top of the mountain, slow and steady and taking it all in. We stopped to watch some parachuters unfurl their parachutes, get them airborne, and then leap up and off the side of the mountain, to glide down seemingly without a care in the world. We kept on, stopping again, this time to take some photos of the local cows, who also seemed to have not a care in the world. We walked until we reached the tip of the mountain ridge. There, we stopped and sat and enjoyed a brief moment where we were together and had not a care in the world.
Across five short days we had lived in Riva Del Garda. It turns out that’s all it takes for you to feel like you know a place. For its streets to start to feel familiar, for a borrowed house to begin to feel like your own, for a reunion to take place before parting ways yet again.
We left Jon, Alex, and Roo at a bus stop, where Roo, with the adorable misunderstanding of a two year old, heartily thanked Holly for letting him stay at her house. They would continue their long drive home, while Holly and I would board one of the many buses. We were heading up, higher into the mountains for the final leg of our trip. We were going to the Dolomites.
But I’ll tell you about that next time.
Until then, holy moley and thanks for reading.