Lake Garda, Italy – Jim wanted to see the ruins of Catullo, so we set off for a day full of adventure and unexpected coincidences and encounters with “guardian angels”.
We had never even heard of Sirmione until our landlord mentioned it to us when we first arrived in Lido on June 6. As soon as he learned we were planning an excursion to Verona he told us we just had to go to Sirmione as well. Why? Well, there are Roman ruins there. Our friend in Lido, Giada, who works for Marriott in Venice, told us that the only thing there was “a pile of rocks”. Well, mentioning “Roman ruins” and “a pile of rocks” to Jim in the same sentence just piqued his interest even more. None of the guidebooks we had brought with us even mentioned Sirmione. Jim researched it online and the game was afoot!
Sirmione is not an easy place to reach. While it is located only about 30 miles west from the train station in Verona, situated at the end of a peninsula on the southern shore of Lake Garda, we could only reach it by city bus – #C6 from the train station. Then by transferring to a shuttle bus and then by tram (unless we had opted to rent a car. But vehicular traffic is banned in Old Town Sirmione unless you have reservations at one of the hotels there, and even then drivers are required to switch off the engine when stopped for traffic lights in town. Our trip was dependent upon making perfect transportation connections. Our goal was to be back at the Verona train station in time to board a train that would return us to Venice no later than 9 or 10 p.m., keeping in mind that it was still going to take us almost another hour on a vaporetto to get all the way back to our apartment in Lido. Could we pull it off? Well, let’s just say that Rick Steves would have been proud at how perfectly the timing worked out. As an alternative plan, we could have signed up for a bus tour from the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Verona from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. but we would only have been able to take a boat ride at Lake Garda offering a view of the ruins; Jim wanted to actually tour the ruins.
We enjoyed the breakfast buffet at 10 a.m. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and checked out at 11. The hotel shuttle dropped us off at the Verona train station where we were able to easily purchase bus tickets to Sirmione (as per specific instructions from the hotel’s front desk) and check our bags. We were in time to catch the 1:12 p.m. train, and then we were on our way through town and out into the country.
Sirmione is a beautiful tourist resort area. You must pass through the castle there – built by the Scaligeris (remember them? Verona’s ruling family that arranged to be “looked up to” even in death by being entombed in raised coffins?). Sirmione is famous for the Terme di Sirmione (indoor and outdoor pools and spas). The sources of Lake Garda’s underwater hot springs were discovered in the late 19th-century. Sirmione is also renowned for its Roman ruins of the Grotto di Catullo – mistakenly thought to be caves (grottoes) by early explorers because the ruins were so overgrown with vines that they resembled caves. The area is named for the Roman poet Catullo who lived here. Also in the vicinity – besides hotels, restaurants, and campgrounds – are amusement parks and CanevaWorld’s Movieland Studios.
After almost an hour of travel on the bus, I’d somehow lost track of exactly how may stops were left on our route even though I was following along on the printed list of the complete bus schedule given to us at the hotel with the route from the Verona train station to Sirmione and back to the train station. I approached a young man and his girlfriend who were seated about three rows in front of us and asked in Italian: “Per favor” (please) “Sirmione, prossimo?” (Next?) which I hoped he would assume meant that I was asking if Sirmione was the next stop. He replied in perfect English, “Sorry, I don’t speak Italian!” I laughed and said,” I don’t either!” and we continued the conversation in English. He was from Czechoslovakia. He’d been tracking the bus route on his cellphone’s GPS and although he was sure of our stop which was coming up soon, we were all grateful when the bus driver called out that we had reached the correct transfer stop. We waited just a few minutes to connect to the shuttle bus which would then take us the last couple of miles to Sirmione. We were let off the bus at the shuttle stop right in front of the castle (and right next door to the post office and the Information Center); this is the only entrance by land into the Old Town which is dotted with quaint shops, hotels, the Terme baths, cafes, restaurants, gelato stands, and beaches. Interestingly, one of the estates located within Old Town Sirmione was once occupied by fiery opera star Maria Callas (remembered now as the jilted girlfriend of Aristotle Onassis who left her to marry Jacqueline Kennedy).There is a small sign to mark the property near the tram stop. American poet Ezra Pound once resided in the lakeside hotel here called Eden.
After a leisurely 15-minute walk thru town, we boarded the shuttle tram (1 euro per person, one way), and after only two or three more minutes, we arrived at the ruins. Once again, TheBayNet.com Press passes were honored for our admission and we spent a fascinating hour exploring this ancient site. The villa and baths, alleged to have been those of the poet Catullus, offer amazing panoramic views of the lake and mountains. This site recalls the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii – but minus the volcanic eruption!
A sudden thunderstorm forced us to remain for a while longer inside the Museum until the weather cleared. We waited for the return tram to pick us back up at 3 PM, but it never appeared. We eventually just decided to walk back to the castle, stopping for a few minutes to eat the sandwiches I had packed for us at breakfast back at the hotel. We also sampled some gelato and did some window-shopping. We thought we were certain of the bus schedule but just for luck decided to stop into the Information Center outside the castle. During a friendly chat with a staff member, I was reminded that we first needed to take the return shuttle bus to connect to the main bus – and the shuttle was due in just a few more minutes at the stop right next to the Information Booth (we’d been calculating the schedule for the C6 bus and had completely forgotten about needing to take the shuttle first to get to the C6 bus!).We reached the shuttle on time and then made lots of international acquaintances among the other travelers while waiting at the stop for the connection to the C6 bus back to Verona which was more than a half-hour late.
The return trip was slower than the trip out to Sirmione had been, probably due to the later time of day, rush-hour traffic, and to the rain which came and went during the ride back into Verona.
We reached Porta Nova station just before 6 p.m. and sprinted through the raindrops to get inside. We were faced – once again – with the dreaded ticket machine. As we were trying to decide which—and how many—buttons to push for tickets to print out, a “guardian angel” in the persona of a really young man (he looked so young I would have said he was 12, but he was probably at least 20) suddenly materialized from out of nowhere and asked us if we needed help. Now just why he approached us and not any of the other people who were in line ahead of or behind us, I have no idea but, once again, we were so grateful for his help. I wasn’t entirely sure that he was an official employee, but he did have ID hanging from a lanyard around his neck so I figured he was probably trustworthy. He walked us over to the automatic ticket machines, I handed over my credit card upon his request (with only a fleeting moment of panic as I wondered if possibly he really was a fraud and was about to abscond with my Visa card), and in seconds he handed back my card with tickets for the next train to Venice which was leaving in only 12 minutes! We thanked him over and over again for his perfectly-timed assistance, and then I dashed around the corner through the corridor to retrieve our stored baggage (16 euros for the afternoon for two bags).
It rained on and off during the trip back to the Santa Lucia/ Ferrovia station in Venice; from there we were able to immediately connect with a vaporetto at about 8 p.m., arriving in Lido 45 minutes later. The sporadic thunder and lightning had now blossomed into a terrific downpour so we queued up for a taxi at the Lido vaporetto stop to drive us to the apartment (10 euros for about 10 blocks). The taxi driver was so accommodating – he took the time to put his raincoat on when we arrived at the apartment so that he could help us with our bags when we got out of the cab. We were back in the apartment, safe and sound and warm and dry, by 9 p.m.
The first order of business was to determine where I’d left the Padua train tickets. They were nowhere to be found. To date (as of this writing on July 29 – after having completely cleaned up and packed up at the apartment on June 30, and after having completely unpacked all of our bags once we arrived back home), I have never found the tickets. Only St. Anthony knows for sure…
NEXT: The Finale: Travelling through three airports on our way home to the US of A.
(Historical sources for Sirmione: Lonely Planet Italy, 8th edition, and Frommer’s Italy 2013.)
