I have my vaccination card. (Yes, of course I’m vaccinated, and yes, of course I’ve had a booster shot too.) I have my negative Covid test. (Yes, of course I had a PCR test.) I have my letter of introduction from the Italian Minister of Sport, certifying that I am a competitor in an International Competition. (This might get me past a quarantine requirement.)
I get to LAX two hours early. Yay, me. This enables me to hang out in the beautiful Lufthansa lounge, complete with nice wine and delicious cheese. A quote on the wall: “the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page”. Well that’s a pleasant sendoff – I want to read the whole book!
It’s time! … off on a beautiful 747-800, probably 25 years old and solid as a rock.
I will gloss over the trip – nice early dinner, lots of wine (Medoc), lots of sleep (yay!), a nice breakfast, and poof there I am in Frankfurt feeling kind of like I’m adjusted to the time already.
After a brief little delay – editing photos if you must know 🙂 – on the road again…
Another nice little meal – why do European airlines get this so much righter than US ones?
(The coffee on board was delicious, but I experimentally verified that when you put pepper in it thinking it is sugar, it tastes horrible. Sigh)
And so now, Verona!
I have reserved an Alfa Romeo from SIXT, a German car rental company, and no they do not have any Alfas (boo), but the nice girl behind the rental desk sympathized with me and gave me a BMW 2ix instead (yay). I did have visions of motoring around Italy in a little Alfa… So be it.
Off to Malcesine – I decided to leave the car in “Italian” so the GPS instructions would help me learn Italian. Hehe. I now know sinistra (left), destra (right), and rotatoria (roundabout) pretty well.
(By the way, Italians speak Italian velocemente – fast – and actually troppo velocemente – too fast. Whew. I have been learning l’Italiano – capisco un po’ – but I have work to do. )
There was max traffic and so my car routed me onto side roads closer to the lake and wow, just wow. How beautiful is Lake Garda?
Mothing Malcesine 