Day 6 – Ascona (Switzerland) –> Lake Garda (Italy)

Today is going to be a long one. We’re leaving Switzerland for Lake Garda in Italy and are going via the “scenic” route rather than the much faster autostrade via Milan.

The route itself isn’t the longest at 380 km but it is almost all on small rural roads through innumerable ancient Italian villages with narrow roads and plenty of traffic.

We had originally planned to go via the motorway because today was forecast for the longest time as heavy rain, but as it drew closer, the weather forecast got better and better.

We grab breakfast by the lake in the morning sunshine – our last with the always excellent Swiss hospitality.

Leaving breakfast we notice the hotel has a display cabinet with a random Porsche 911 die-cast model and some uncomfortable looking ”911” branded Italian shoes.

The brightly coloured McLaren certainly catches our attention, looking particularly striking in the morning sunshine.

While we wait for the valet to bring around our car and load up our luggage.

We head off towards Italy, passing through some Swiss vineyards first.

We swing by the famous Lake Como, looking very appealing in the midday sun. At over 400 metres deep, it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe. 

The streets are narrow here with heavy traffic and zero chance of finding somewhere to park unless you are very lucky, we head on along the lake in search of somewhere quieter for lunch.

Just before crossing the border from Switzerland into Italy, we stop off at what must be one of the most picturesque fuel stops we’ve ever been at. It is a tiny station on the shore of the lake, that is selling 98 octane fuel. As we’ll mostly be in very rural areas today, we take the opportunity to top up with high-quality petrol.

We cross into Italy quickly with no delays or checks by the border police on either side.

We soon find a quieter town to stop for something to eat. The parking meter here takes some wrangling until we figure out the card tapping device is broken and it will only take coins. Thankfully, Italy is in the Euro so we can use some Irish coins to pay.

We choose a place overlooking the lake and sit down under a shade from the midday sun.

As we still have a long drive ahead of us, we push on into the afternoon. As we leave the lake behind us and start to climb up into the mountains.

We meet up with some bikers and travel along with them for a while, keeping back from them slightly in case one of them should fall.

We continue to pass through countless villages all with ancient churches.

And some mostly closed off-season ski resorts.

It is a long way down closer to sea level towards Lake Garda – the largest lake in Italy – our destination for the next two days.

In our Porsche Taycan, this would have been an opportunity to capture some energy via regenerative braking, but today in our 911 Targa it just wears out some of our brake pads!

As darkness falls we join the autostrade for the last 30 km. Noticing three planes flying in formation off into the distance.

We stop off at service station for a brief toilet break before driving into the tourist town of Riva del Garda where our hotel is located.

Where we quickly find our hotel, grab a parking spot and perform the now familiar luggage unloading routine.

We pass by some other 911s and a charging Fiat 500 on our way to our room.

Today – as anticipated – was a long one. Not in terms of distance but in terms of time. Thankfully, the kitchen in our hotel is still open, so we grab some dinner and a drink to relax after a tiring but very enjoyable drive.

The weather held for the entire day, and we were glad we didn’t take the easier, faster but boring autostrade to here.

Stats

Today we did 386 km over 7:48 hours, with an average speed of 50 km/h, consuming 11.7 litres/100 km.