Lake Iseo

We left our campsite on Lake Maggiore and drove a couple of hours to Lake Iseo. The first campsite we tried was full - but the check in guy directed us to another campsite - Girasole - also right on the lake. The spaces were small but we found it didn’t matter as most of the neighbours were permanent vans that were unoccupied - so there was hardly anyone else around even though the site looked nearly full. We are about 20 meters from the stunning lake frontage. There are lots of swans, crested grebe, moor hens, geese, small egrets and a heron so Glenn is happy.

After a late lunch we went for a swim in the big pool - it was very luxurious to have it all to ourselves - and we did a few laps.

The sunset and night views on the lake were lovely.

We had a relaxing dinner and went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Next morning we got on our bikes and cycled to a nature reserve a few kilometers away near the town of Iseo. An old monastery overlooks the nature reserve- and actually used to own the land - which is why it has not been built on.

The nature reserve had been a peat cutting area in the far distant past and is now a wetland with paths across it.

There is a birdwatching tower in the middle.

We found an Italian girl there who had a huge camera. She said she was very passionate about birds and had obviously been there a long time already. Glenn had a good chat with her and the most significant things they saw were a cetti’s warbler, kingfisher, 3 heron and either a beaver or a coypu.

After a while we headed back to collect our bikes and cycled into the town of Iseo.

We first found the lively main square on the lake marina and decided to stop for a light lunch - with beer of course!

We then went to explore. Iseo is a medieval town so had lots of interesting squares and narrow streets.

There was a Garibaldi statue on a huge plinth of moss and maidenhair fern - very unusual.

We first went to the 12th century St Andrew’s church that had amazing paintings everywhere - and some grizzly remains of a saint in one altar.

We then went to a small church right next to it that is now defunct but is being renovated. In getting rid of the top layer of plaster they found different layers of paintings underneath.

I’m sure it will be interesting to see what they find.

Our next stop was 13th century Oldofredi Castle at the top of the town that had a photographic exhibition on. What was more interesting was the huge ape’s head and the old wall paintings.

After having a good look through we headed back down to the Harbour to a good gelato shop to reward us after all our exercise. It was excellent ‘artisan’ gelato - I had a very good tiramisu and Glenn found the flavour he always looks for and rarely finds - liquorice. After that little rejuvenation we got back on our bikes and headed back towards the campsite. Glenn stopped halfway to go down to another wetland area - and I went back to the van. Glenn arrived back not much later as he didn’t find many birds- but he did meet the girl with the huge camera again!

There were more birds around us on the lake anyway when we had sundowner drinks.

A couple of geese kept trying to climb up the boat ramp to try to steal another campers sausages off the barbecue. His wife was kept busy scaring them away.

We then went for an easy dinner to the on-site pizza restaurant. I think it had cut down the menu to only pizzas after the end of school holidays.

We invited a lone camping cyclist to join us - Lisa from Belgium. She is a journalist focused on the effects of tourism on different areas - she has a lot of material to work on there! She was cycling all the way to Rome. The reason was to decide if she wanted to move to Italy as Belgium is a very busy place with everyone very pressured and stressed out by their work and with little nature in the country. Cycling is an interesting way to find out how Italy is!

The pizzas were excellent and we enjoyed a good chat about travelling with Lisa.

Storms were expected that night - and they did hit with a vengeance. We were fine in the van but poor Lisa had to shelter in the awning of one of the permanent vans to keep dry. I don’t think she got much sleep unfortunately.