Kayaking at Lake Garda

On Sunday, my roommate Rachel and I went on a kayaking trip put on by the Outdoor Rec program on base. There were 13 people that went--it was an interesting group--2 instructors, a new instructor in training, a few soldiers, a married couple, and 2 wives whose husbands are currently deployed. We left at 6:45am and took a van with a kayak trailer behind and drove to the lake. I think it was only like 1.5 hours to drive.

Lake Garda is Italy's largest lake (30 miles long and 10 miles wide in some places). We unloaded and learned the basics of getting in and paddling the kayaks. We were off and going in no time. Because there is a lot of boat traffic, we paddled near the shore and stopped a few times along the route at beaches and rock areas until we got to Sirmione (a town along the lake).

We pulled up our kayaks and because we paddled so quickly, we had about 1 hour until our restaurante reservations. Rachel and I decided to look around the town which was a bit of a walk but very pretty. We came back after a bit and laid on the dock thing and checked out the beach--there were a ton of people laying out to tan and swim--i guess for many Italians Sunday is a family day and many go to the beach. We had a good lunch in the outdoor part of a restaurant close to the shore.

We headed out towards the castle that was built in Roman times...I was surprised when the instructors led us paddling around the castle in the moat, under a drawbridge thing and back out! It was really cool because you could see inside the castle walls where the water still flowed and they used to keep the ships inside until ready to fight! There were lots of tourists taking pictures of us in the moat--they were quite a ways above us on the streets/sidewalks around the castle. We headed back through a boat harbor and had to paddle really fast to get through before more of the speedboats took off! it was a bit scary. We got back, loaded, and drove home. I was surprised that my arms weren't even too tired but it was a good workout!