Chaos caused by beauties!

Last night around midnight there was the mother of all thunderstorms coupled with hail. We are on the 7th and top floor of this apartment block and the hail sounded like large rocks hitting the roof while the lightning lit up the bedroom even though the outside metal shutters that are common in Europe were covering the windows.

Not to be outdone his mate followed along around 5 am and carried out another full assault on the building.

As I lay in bed listening to the outside noises I couldn’t help thinking of something I wrote in my blog of 25 August 2019 when we were in St Etienne.

Spoke to another guest at StE accommodation before we left. He is from Canada (born in Belgium) and travels around Canada, Belgium and France repairing vehicles damaged by hail stones using a “dent removal process” and without damaging the paint.

There was a hailstorm in StE about 2 months ago and he will be there for around 4 months as he has a contract with one firm to repair 300 vehicles!

As soon as I was able I quickly looked out the window and saw that the 308 was clear of any damage.

We went to Peschiera del Garda today by train and that had some challenges because of the two beauties. We arrived at the station in good time for our train to find that the station was overcrowded and announcements over the loudspeaker were constant. We only needed to look at the arrivals and departures board to see that trains this morning were running anything but on time due we figured to issues caused by last nights storm.

Our train was scheduled to be on time so we went onto the appropriate platform and waited for it and it duly arrived but some 5 minutes delayed - found some seats and waited for it to move off, and waited and waited.

Sitting opposite us was a lady of some age (we found it difficult to judge just how old) so we were lucky enough to strike up a conversation as her English was better that our Italian. Standing on the platform to see her depart was a man of similar age who she told us was her husband who she had been with for 23 years but only married for the last two - he had a home in Verona and she a home in Milan and so there was regular travel between the two cities for her and today she was returning to Milan. She implied that the secret to their relationship was that they lived apart!!! She showed us photos of her garden where a large pine tree from a neighbouring property had fallen into over night so the storm was very widespread. She took great interest in our holiday and wanted to know where we were travelling to. Talking with her helped pass the time as the train took forever to move off and when it did we travelled though very wet conditions but by the time we arrived the weather had cleared so I guess the delay had its pluses.

Peschiera del Garda, as the name suggests is a town at the southern end of Lake Garda and from the numerous English accents we heard as walked around some of the shoreline is a favourite with the Brits on their summer break.

While we had brunch at a cafe adjacent to the main road I stopped counting after seeing 20 vehicles with smashed windscreens and some  being very pitted with small dents so clearly the storms had done their damage in PdG and again I thought of the Canadian dent repairer

Audi with pitted windscreen

It turned out to be a hot day and so we went for our second swim on this tour - the underfoot was pebbles but once one was in the water was very pleasant. Time passed reasonable quickly and before we knew it it was time to return to the station to get the afternoon train home.

The train arrived some 10 minutes late and after everyone was in just sat there until finally there was an announcement that there was some issue on the line and there would be a delay. Cutting a long story short this train was delayed 1hr 22 minutes - not a good day for Italian Railways.

As for PdG like most locations which look out to water there were some great sights particularly with the Dolomites in the back ground 

Something common here and in Germany are dog owners taking their dogs for walkies but in push chairs or similar

This couple had two in separate pushchairs- the photo on the right I took over my shoulder so as not to be too obvious and I hope like hell this guy didn’t see me taking one of him

A Bandido from Australia 

It was good to get out of the city but the delays on the trains were frustrating.

Enjoyed a nice meal on the Piazza Bra before walking back home

Kms driven to date 2691

Kms walked to date 399.2

Spent on Diesel €129.66

Highest price paid to date for diesel €1.579 Würzburg 

Lowest price paid to date for diesel €1.479 Freiburg

Spent on tolls €27.60