A realization, Father's Day and Desenzano

One thing we learned after our spring break in Paris, is that while we can all agree sightseeing is fun, it is difficult for us without a car. Europe has great transportation, don't get me wrong! Between the buses and the trains and the cheap(er) airfare, travel can be enjoyed fairly easily. What Paris taught us is that with the ages of our kids (or maybe the sizes of our kids) public transportation isn't easy. The underground metro was impossible to navigate with a stroller and it was a lot of steps for little legs. The day we went sight seeing without a stroller, Ron and I were exhausted from carrying Maggie (and even Connor) as they got tired. My kids are big sleepers. Even Logan who is six, will nap for a little bit in the afternoon. So by mid afternoon, we needed that stroller. When it started raining, we realized walking everywhere isn't much fun (especially when it rains the day you didn't take the stroller). When the kids were utterly exhausted and we wasted 2 hours trying to get to the police station, I wished we had had a car. My kids are young but more so my kids are small. Ryan is in the "less than 3rd percentile" for his height. Short means short legs. And while he didn't whine while we were out and about, his legs were sore the next morning, which made it hard to get up and go.

Once back home from our trip to Paris, Ron and I decided that we ALL did much better with short weekend car trips, than we did with long trips relying on public transit. While driving in Italy isn't always easy, the benefits outweigh the negative aspect.

So we've been thinking about where we might want to go this summer. The plus side of being a furloughed government employee is the short work week. We talked about Slovenia/Croatia coast line, Milan, Lake Como, Bolzano for 3 day weekends and decided that we will try to squeeze in a few local trips too. 

Last Sunday was Father's Day and it was the day before Ron's birthday and he decided that we should go to Lake Garda, but not Sirmione (which we absolutely love). After looking online, he chose Desenzano del Garda. So we set out...

It was an hour and 15 minutes away and a very easy drive. It's a beach town and we learned that hard way, a very very crowded beach town at 11am on a Sunday. But it was gorgeous, the temperature was cooler and watching the boats made up for the crowd. We went off the beaten path, decided not to swim but to explore and had fun!

I didn't take very many photos, I was too busy holding hands and eating gelato.