Day Trip to Sirmione

Monday, July 25, 2016--Desenzano to Sirmione and Back

After sleeping in and having a late breakfast buffet at 10:00, we headed to Sirmione, a small, ancient walled town at the tip of a narrow peninsula.  We took the bus there to see everything between here and there, then we took the boat back.

Sirmione has over 5000 years of history.  One of it's most interesting stories is that it was the home of the last Cathar Christians.  During the Inquisition, the Catholic Church rounded up the last 166 SUSPECTED Cathars, took them to the Roman arena in Verona, and burned them alive for the entertainment of all good Catholics who wanted to watch.

Today, it is a small town with a grand entrance gate with multiple towers.  The streets are narrow and lined with quaint buildings housing hotels, restaurants, ice cream shops, etc.  We wandered up and down the main streets and the back streets.  We found "Pinocchio" providing families the chance to have their children's photos taken with him.  We found small beaches with people swimming and sunbathing, we found olive groves as part of an old castle estate, we found the summer home of Maria Calas, etc.  (Sirmione has also been the temporary home of Lord Byron, Alfred the Lord Tennyson, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway, and Greta Garbo.  We several of these here because they were guests of Maria Callas?)

There were crowds of people there for the day.  Some had come in cars, some by ferries from other resorts on the lake, and some by bus from as far away as Verona and Venice.  It was fun just watching the people, so we stopped to sit in shaded areas several times during the day and observed.

Observations of Italy:

One nice surprise we have found about Italy is that every place we have been so far has plenty of public water fountains unlike so many other European countries.  We carry bottles of water with us and refill them at the public fountains as they get low.  It sure does make wandering around easier, since the temperatures here are hot.

Compared to my previous visits to Italy, it has been interesting to note how many immigrants are here now--Africans, Middle Easterners, Turks, Indians, etc.  In Bergamo, we walked through a neighborhood that seemed to be exclusively recent immigrants.