Lake Garda in Italy - Lago di Garda

Here I am in Italy again, my third time visiting this alluring and charming country. There is still so much to see and learn about this country. This time, arriving from my home of Cyprus, I land in Milan at Bergamo airport. My beloved local tour guide is waiting for me at the airport in a charming new FIAT 500L car which has Sponge Bob pictures all over it! 

I thought I was over Sponge Bob years ago when my daughter finally ended her love affair with this cute children’s comic character. Apparently I was not over Bob! He would accompany me for a few days, taking me around Lago di Garda, its beautiful towns, and later to the cities of Verona and Padova .

Lake Garda, Italy’s biggest lake, is not well known outside Italy as Como Lake. Located in Northern Italy, it is about half-way between Brescia and Verona, and between Venice and Milan. Its beautiful surroundings have captured my attention and I am intrigued to explore this area as much as time allows me.  The classic and modern blend very well together all over Italy and especially here and all the towns across the lake’s shoreline. Northern Italians as well as many other Europeans keep this area as their pristine summer holiday destination.

After leaving the airport our first stop is the gorgeous town of Sirmione. We are staying at this charming bed and breakfast place, Raggio Di Sole, run by Wilma, a lovely woman who rents rooms out of her home through the AirBnB program. If you are looking for a friendly, comfortable, clean and easy to get to place while visiting this area, that’s where you should stay. The rooms are all located on the ground floor and the hostess lives with her family on the upper floor. The property has a beautiful and very large back yard with a swimming pool and a lovely vegetable garden. It seems only I would notice and find the vegetables beautiful! She offers breakfast outside on a covered patio area but she also has a small indoor eating area.  Our breakfast consists of various yummy Italian pastries accompanied by the aromatic Italian Espresso or any other coffee or tea your heart desires. 

I’m certain that if I lived in Italy, I would be about 50 pounds heavier. I can’t resist these pastries and cakes offered in the morning – all fattening but yet Italians manage to stay thin!

Dinner on the first night is at Al Cavallo, close to our B&B and easy to find since it has a big horse statue outside. I just love being in Europe where I am able to have a late dinner. I know that it’s not very healthy to eat late in the evening but 8:00 p.m. is not late in my book if you go to bed at 11:00 or later. We enter the charming restaurant fully packed with people. Most of the patrons are sitting outside as the weather is still nice and warm in early October. Everyone is eating and drinking wine or beer and talking with friends and family around their tables. The atmosphere is busy yet offers a friendly and welcoming feeling. It is a sentiment I have no matter where I am in Italy. My tour guide tells me that this is the place to have fresh fish. I don’t wait a moment to order -  fish - exactly how we serve it in my home country of Cyprus – cleared from the bones, opened in half and served on a platter drizzled with a little bit of olive oil, lemon and a bit of chopped parsley on top. I love it and I savor every tasty bite. The fish is fresh and smells of the sea. I don’t need to chew a lot as it melts in my mouth. Of course, freshly baked bread accompanies my meal as well. My smiley Italian companion gets a nice pizza with gorgonzola and speck. I accompany my tasty fish with white wine, prosecco scaraffato. My partner, in this great culinary experience, gets a pint of blonde refreshing beer. I could not fit in any dessert so I skip it this time.

After a restful night, we are up and fully energized in the morning for a tour of the towns around the lake. We have our sweet breakfast with lots of pastries including croissants, apple strudel and yummy cookies. We are ready to conquer the area.

We rent bicycles from our hostess and off we go to the charming town of Sirmione. It takes just 15 minutes to cycle to the old town inside the picturesque 13th century Scaliger Castle walls. We cycle along the lake and the utter beauty is filled with lots of flower beds on the roadside and many small hotels on the lake shore. It’s an easy and pleasant ride. The ancient fortified town of Sirmione, located on the south of the lake, is one particularly popular destination, home to the Virgilio & Catullo Spa Complexes, as well as numerous restaurants, bars, hotels, fashion stores and a market. The minute I step into the castle, I’m in another century and time. I feel lighter, happier and ready to take the world. The beautiful flowers on all the balconies, the quaint patios of the restaurants, the old churches, the cobble stoned streets and the mouthwatering dishes served at every restaurant that we pass by tell me to be happy. I, indeed, take this advice. Everything is beautiful inside the old walls of Sirmione located on the southern part of the lake. 

The lake water is clean, calm and welcoming for a lunch break by the shore, so we do. I order potato dumplings. Italians call them gnocchi but I must admit the ones my Italian partner prepares for me at home are far better than the ones at the restaurant.

Right after lunch the beautiful day turns rainy and windy. As we cycle back to our B&B, we get soaked. I am energetic and happy so I don’t mind getting wet and pushed around by the wind. In the evening we decide to have a quick dinner, something on the lighter side since we had a full late lunch. For the first time I try piadina at a small pub. Our piadina are custom stuffed with ham, mushrooms, grilled zucchini and mozzarella!

The second day in Sirmione we find ourselves wondering about more towns around Garda Lake. Desenzano is one of the beautiful towns we visit. We walk on the pier taking lots of pictures trying to capture the beauty we have around us. We stop by a local bar for an aperitiv. At this point, I call it the Italian national drink accompanied by many appetizers! I can’t believe what I see in front of me! They serve us all these tasty appetizers at no extra cost – small pizzas, olives, cheese, small sandwiches and we just pay for our drink at a very low price! Wow, why don’t we have this in the U.S.?!

Peschiera is our last stop before we head back to Padova! 






On the way, we stop by a flea market and buy fresh cooked fish served on a little brown paper bag and have it as a snack. Yummy! 

The market is filled with colors just like everywhere else - colors of the beautiful clothes hanging everywhere, the fresh fruit and vegetables sold at the same place – colors, lots of happy colors! Lots of stylish shoes and clothes are sold at the market at very reasonable price along with trailers selling fresh raw and cooked fish and fresh vegetables. My camera cannot stop snapping photos.

I am happy. We head back to Padova but before we leave the area I can’t resist but to stop at a local mall. I go crazy with the stylish clothes I find there and splurge! Everything I buy is at a lower price than where I live!

Will I go back to Garda Lake and the surrounding towns? Indeed I will. I simply must!  There are a lot more towns and quaint villages to visit.

Eat Seasonal - Quick Meal

 

Many times I am surprised as to how tasteless certain fruit and vegetables are; not having any taste even when I buy them fresh from the supermarket or small grocery stores. It's a bit disappointing! Well, the answer to my disappointment is that if I start eating seasonal like I used to I could/would enjoy a better taste in my food. Here I am starting to do that.

I have to admit that when there is an abundance of a certain fruit and vegetables around, nobody will be busy growing that in any greenhouse or feeding it hormones to grow fast - the result!? ... get to enjoy the real taste of fresh food.

I will pick on zucchini today which we have in abundance starting in May and going well into the fall. They are easy to pair with a lot of foods or cooked on their own and they are very nutritious – having tons of vitamin A and C and some essential minerals such as calcium, phosphorus and Potassium!

Last night in just a few minutes I sliced a couple of zucchinis and braised them in olive oil (only a couple of teaspoons). In the end I topped them with some crumbled feta on top and fresh mint. It was my side dish that accompanied my meat pies. I cheated a little bit by using ready dough. I prepared my meat filling and then I stuffed my pastry pockets. I even played around with the shapes of my pastries creating triangles, square ….shapes.

Meat Filling

1 pound ground beef

¼ cup finely chopped yellow onion

½ cup puree tomatoes

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon dry mint

Salt

Pepper

¼ cup finely chopped parsley added only a minute before removing from the heat

Enjoy!

Καλη ορεξη!

Orlando's Pizza

Spend a few minutes talking with my beloved Gianluca Orlando and you will figure out very quickly that cooking is one of his biggest passions! He can spend hours talking about food and cooking. It’s easy to understand why he loves food  … he is from Italy! He was brought up in a Country where there is an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables and where people love to cook  and enjoy sharing food with one another – Italy! He comes from the Northern part of Italy, Padova located 20 minutes away from Venice. As most of people in Italy, he grew up in a family where his mom cooked every day and prepared fresh meals for the family. Take aways and fast food were unknown in their household!

Gianluca an electronics engineer and an IT geek :-) is also trained as a pizza maker – true to his food fascination he realized early on that he had to explore his culinary passion and learn new ways to express it. Is there any better way other than the art of making pizza?! A few years ago he decided to enroll in a pizza making course along with other professionals such as medical doctors and lawyers. He proudly finished the course and got his pizza making certificate!

When you visit his home in Padova he will proudly show you his pizza making diploma and not his engineering and computer degrees!

I have already enjoyed his pizzas on several occasions and I can tell you that they are delicious and healthy! They have nothing to do with the average pizzas we eat in the United States. They have a thin and soft crust so that you can easily fold the pizza slice while eating it and the fresh ingredients used on his pizzas are used in moderation like they do back in his home Country Italy. For the Italians when they cook, less is more. Yes, they use garlic and tomato sauce and cheese BUT ALWAYS in moderation. They usually eat these individual pizzas which are about 25 cm in diameter and one wonders how can these people eat all this pizza and not be weighing 250 pounds – the secret is that all the ingredients used are in moderation and there is no oil. They drizzle a little bit of virgin olive oil on top of the pizza just before they eat it.

I have had pizzas made by Gianluca with artichokes. eggplant, zucchini, peas, gorgonzola cheese, roasted red bell pepper, chicken to name just a few of the toppings. All of his pizzas have been simply delicious. His latest adventure was to modify a barbeque grill into a pizza oven! 

Yes, you heard it correctly – grill serving as a pizza oven - only Gianluca can spend hours thinking and trying to covert a grill into a different oven! His new oven can reach 600 degrees F which is the temperature that a pizza needs to bake at for a couple of minutes only! I call it  pizza express!

All he uses for his dough is flour, salt, a bit of sugar, water, yeast and some water! After the dough rises for a couple of hours he starts opening his pizzas.

Here’s his dough recipe.

3 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/3 cups hot water or ½ pint (water’s temperature 110 F)

2 ½ teaspoons dry yeast

Makes 4 pizzas – approximate size 16 inch pizzas

Come join us for a fun evening of making pizza along with a glass of beer or wine!

Buon appetito!