Malcesine, a small cobblestone village on the eastern short of Lake Garda, was the perfect finale to our 2017 Italian Avventura. We went from freezing, snowy mountains to freezing, rainy palm trees and beaches.
We rolled into Malcesine just in time for sunset and wandered the charming cobblestone streets choosing the world’s worst pizzeria for dinner. My first ever Limoncello Spritz and now favorite cocktail (Proseco, Limoncello, and club soda) totally made up for the frozen pizza crust, but seriously we’re in Italy?!?
Malcesine Bay with the Castello Scaligero tower.
View of Lake Garda from the top of Castello Scaligero’s tower.
Our second day in Malcesine may have been my favorite of the whole trip mostly because our hotel had free bike rentals. I always forget how much I love biking; it really is the best way to explore a new town and it didn’t even matter that my bike tires were only partially inflated and had no real working brakes – they were free!
We cruised the bike path alongside the lake and Fritz even went for a swim despite the rain. We locked our bikes up in town and went to tour the Castello Scaligero, a 13th century fortified castle built on the shores of Lake Garda. Turns out I love castles (good thing I am headed to Scotland next)! The castle had a sweet tower you could climb all the way to the top with fantastic views of the lake and city below. On our way back to the hotel we loaded up our baskets with all the Italian essentials (i.e. coffee, chocolate, Proseco, and Mulino Bianco cookies) to take back to the U.S. with us. Seriously one of my most favorite moments traveling in Italy and if I only had a basket on my bike at home…
Malcesine bikes!
Crazy wind blown biker hair with the basket stocked of all Italian essentials.
The best cookies in the entire world, which I happily found at the Yummy Bazaar in the U.S.!
On our final night in Italy, we vowed to not make the previous night’s cardboard for pizza mistake and thoroughly researched our pizzeria decision. We opted for Da Pedro’s and had the most ridiculously fun dining experience ever. I will let Fritz’s Yelp review do the talking:
I don’t understand why this restaurant doesn’t have more reviews on Yelp because it has over 150 on Google. So I am doing my part being #7 to review. Anyway, you have to check this place out if you visit the area. Trust me. These people have this restaurant thing down to a science. The restaurant itself is amazing; it has countless rooms, inside and out, with amazing architecture and the ambiance is romantic yet fast paced. It’s hard to describe, just go. The food is equally amazing and the menu is huge and all of it looked incredible. We had pizza, salad and soup which were probably the most basic items on the menu and all of them were great relative to other Italian restaurants we visited. However, I left longing to try the pasta as it looked even better. Oh I wish I could go there every day for at least a month. To top it all off they gave us a free bottle of wine to take home. We still don’t know why but it was a very nice gesture and great way to end our trip. Now back to the USA where we will be lucky to find an Italian restaurant remotely equivalent to this place. Ciao!
Fritz had Moscow Mule withdrawal in Italy until now…
The last supper.
And the bottle of wine “for you, to take home.” Cheers and until next time Italy!