It’s hot, crowds of people push their way through narrow streets. High season in the historic center of Bardolino on Lake Garda. How am I supposed to communicate with the people here without a smattering of Italian? When I arrived, I felt a feeling that I know so well. Like seven years ago when I came to Germany. I asked the camping office employee for a pitch for my tent. In Arabic and Russian. He made it clear to me that English or German would be much more helpful. German? What a relief.
I’ve been hearing for years that my German friends and acquaintances are going to Lake Garda. I never had Lake Garda on my radar. Where the lakes in the Munich Oberland are so close – and the Chiemsee is not far either. But my friends didn’t give up. They said I would like camping on Lake Garda.
tent construction. Press metal pins into the ground by hand. After the third pin I was sweating despite the shady pitch. Then my neighbors – Erdinger – intervened and handed me a rubber mallet. Now I could save my hands. The pins could be driven deep, although I bent one or the other.
How much do you bend yourself when you go to Lake Garda? This question bothered me. But maybe the moment with the hammer was the key for me. I made new acquaintances. And the more the plastic tarpaulins formed into a tent, the more I became aware that the majority on this campsite is Bavarian. The German flag fluttered there, there one from TSV 1860. With my car, complete with a Munich license plate, and the red and white FC Bayern scarf, I was all the rage.
The vacation days progressed. Knuckle of pork and pretzels, Augustiner and Paulaner: Some restaurants on Lake Garda are strikingly based on Munich traditions. What does some, almost all mean.
When I go to the mostly gently sloping shore on a mild summer evening, look to the horizon, listen to the chirping of crickets and the gentle waves of the lake, which is resting at night, then I sink into my thoughts. Goethe stopped here at the time and described his impressions in his famous work about his “Italian journey”. He was enthusiastic about this lake, the landscapes surrounding it, the people, the certain something that the lake exuded.
When I came back to my tent in the evening, my neighbors now recognized me. Do you chime aa ummi? fun. Spaghetti Pomodoro, grissini and drinks of your choice will then be served. There is hardly an exclave in Bavaria where you are simply invited so spontaneously and at such a late hour. It’s like visiting southerners.