Day 6 – Markets and Isola Pescatori – Friday July 2

I don't think we're taking this camping thing seriously enough. For one, we are way under spec'd on camping equipment. Really, a tent just doesn't cut it. A camper-van arrived last night that we immediately labeled The 'A' Team – man was it impressive. That was when it arrived. 5 minutes later, with it's sky dish erected, I wondered if it wasn't coordinating a moon landing. The sky dish would be twice the size of the one we have hanging off the back of our house and this is just for a motor-home. Secondly, there's the fact that we move away from our campsite – this seems to be a complete break from campground etiquette and I fear could lead to a riot if we don't stop it. The deal seems to be that once you arrive at the campsite, you are not to venture beyond the boundaries of your site unless it is to use the amenities or swim in the lake – nobody seems to do anything other than that.

Finally, there's our attitude to the dishes. Everybody else cooks themselves marvelously elaborate meals of potatoes and sauerkraut and then spends half an hour at the sinks washing their dishes. Anne and I arrived last night, with our two wine glasses and one cheese knife. I put a drop of detergent (I'll come back to the detergent) into each glass, filled it with warm water, put my hand over the top of each glass, gave it a shake to make it sudsy, rubbed it all over with our fingers, tipped the water out over the cheese knife and then rinsed it for Anne to dry it. I then cleaned the now sudsy cheese knife with my fingers and gave that to Anne to dry. We were gone before the rest of them realised we'd arrived. Now when I say detergent, what I really mean is all we have for detergent, cos we don't have any. What we do have is a shampoo and conditioner that we took from the hotel in Auckland and while none of the contents of this bottle has gone near our hair, it is proving useful as a substitute detergent for washing our meager quantity of dishes.

You can tell by my reference to potatoes and Sauerkraut that there is a fear number of Germans in the campground. Infact 90% of the campers are either German or Dutch – could be interesting in a weeks time if they both make it to the World Cup Final. I am writing this from the campground in Lavento, and the major difference between Maggiore and Lavento would be 50 lbs per person.

Where we are doing better, is with our anti-mosquito regime as Anne has taken to spraying the bottom of the tent with fly spray, where the flies can get in and since she has started doing that, the invasions are virtually non-existent and I don't think I've had a new bite since that first night in Milan.

Today is our last day on Lake Maggiore. We had planned to stay an extra day, but we've got everything done here that we want to, so we're heading down to the Riviera a day earlier and will spend an extra day in Genoa before we head to Corsica. Friday is market day in Stressa, so we headed there early to see what was for sale in a larger local market. The highlight for me, other than the shorts and t-shirt that I bought was the local policeman, who everytime we saw him had his tape measure out and was hassling the stall holders about how far out their stalls were protruding onto the street.

After a couple of hours at the market looking at all the clothes, shoes, jewelry, fruit, vegetables, meats and cheeses I can take in in a day, we caught the ferry to Isola Pescatori to have lunch at one of the restaurants we'd seen the day before. The setting on a terrace overlooking Isola Madre and Villa Taranto was magical and the food was superb as well. I had the Spaghetti with tomato, olives and basil for an entree, veal with a Tuna and Capers sauce for the main and creme brule for desert. Anne had Penne Pasta with Trout and olive sauce, for an entree, with the Lake Trout for her main and the creme Brulee for her dessert.

Dinner was once again Antipasti by the lake – it's hard to get tired of that, although that is our last night by the lake, so tomorrow it will be another new experience, as will the destruction of the tent, but more about that in tomorrow's post.