Riva Del Garda

Smarties eat gelatis.

Hired some mountain bikes today (€55 for 4 bikes, I've got mine) and rode up alongside the river that empties into the lake to a town called Arco.  Like every town around here it has a castle, a massive church, a medieval old town with tiny streets and loads of German tourists.  

They are everywhere, the Germans that is.  German is the second language here due to the huge numbers of them about.  

Church in Arco

Every time I ask a shopkeeper for something in Italian and I bugger it up they answer me back in German.  Makes for some interesting exchanges that's for sure as I'm happy to mangle more than one language as I then attempt to make myself understood in German.  

In the end I just revert to English and plead tourist ignorance.  



The ride was a lot of fun and in 4 hours we covered 22kms which is  fair bit for a little bloke like Ryan.  Fortunately most of the ride was on the flat and on bitumen at a fairly sedate pace.

Castello Arco

After lunch we headed about 15kms South of Riva Del Garda and along the Eastern shore until we found a rocky beach.  

No sand here just rounded stones.  Still with the mountains in the distance and beer and wine in our hands we weren't quibbling over the terrain.

Played some soccer with the kids and went for a sub-arctic dip.

 

It's OK......once you're in.

Beach soccer minus sand.