Lago Trasimeno (Lake Trasimeno) in Umbia - still central Italy

Lovely sunset on Lake Trasimeno

We haven't moved very far since our last blog, but have been exploring the shores of Lake Trasimeno - Italy's 4th largest and supposedly oldest lake, has two small inlets,  no outlets & is totally dependant on rainfall - not very deep - only 6 meters at its greatest depth. At times it feels a bit like looking out on Lake Taupo except of course the temperature - and even in the evenings when a slight breeze always seems to come in, it is still warm.

Castiglione Del Largo

We came in from the south into Castiglione Del Lago, which is built on what was once an island and these days joined to the mainland which is thought to have been done by the Romans. Just when we thought we had moved on from the Etruscans, we find that they had set themselves up here too. So again lots of castles, towers, turrets & churches, but each one quite different which keeps them all interesting to visit.
We had a night at Castiglione Del Lago on the lake edge in a large Camper Park nicely shaded by large poplar trees. Great to ride from here around the base of the old

Castle ramparts

town, but walked up into the "old town" - too many steps to take the bikes up.
From here we travelled around the bottom of the lake and up the other side to a lovely little camp "Parco Dei Pini" just out of San Feliciano (a charming and authentic fishing village). The camp is right on the shore of the lake with the motor homes & tents looking out to beautiful sunsets across the far side over Castiglione Del Largo.

Our beautiful pool looking
out onto Lake Trasimeno 

The lake, although thriving with fish, is very weedy, which makes the swimming pool all the more appealing and with the temps back up in the 30's, it is very pleasant to be here.
 We did a bike ride each way from the camp, checking out the little settlements further. One such place - Monte Del Lago -  it's fortress was built in the 14th century, and then became Capital of the Lake in the 15th century. It exists more today for the purpose of people coming to relax. A very pretty, well maintained wee village.
 Moving nearer the top of the lake we stayed a couple of nights at a small Camper site in Passignano. Passignano was more more touristy in that ferry's left from here to the

Looking through to Passignano

couple of other terminals on the lake, and had lot of hotels, cafes & restaurants lining the road way around the lake. We had a lovely evening meal, very pretty looking out to all the lights reflecting on the lake - bit like Nelson's waterfront but ten times the number of restaurants. No one rushing. Very relaxing. Very warm. On our return to camp, they were showing an outdoor Italian movie (of course) which was a comedy by the laughter, but with no subtitles, we weren't too sure what was going on but our plot was pretty amusing too.
We decided it was time to start heading north toward Florence, and into Tuscany, but only got 50km north to Arezzo, one of the Etruscans 12 important Cities of it's time. It

still has nearly 100,000 people living there, so a fairly large city for us. We managed to get on an English speaking tour that had been cancelled in favour of an Italian speaking tour as there were no English tourists at the start of the tour and an Italian family of 5 were wanting to do a tour. So we managed to join them when our very obliging Guide offered to do both languages if we didn't mind. We all agreed and off we went for nearly 2 hours learning of the history of Arezzo with it's political and

Lovely Cheese & meat platters

religious past. The town is today famous for it's art & culture, with what some say was the start of the Renaissance Era. Our Guide was amazing with all her facts & figures, and was quite shattered at the end with swapping language back & forth. Rico would understand what that felt like!
The old town centre was busy with tourists & people with the annual Polyphonics Contest, Choirs from all over the world competing in various churches with amazing acoustics.We were lucky

One of the Crypts below
a choir practising

enough to wander thru another church while rehearsals were in progress, which was beautiful. Also the town was getting ready for the bi annual medieval festival called the Saracen Joust, where Knights on horseback will compete for their area. The work involved in setting this up was incredible - all for one days event. But sadly we won't be there to watch it.

Arezzo's Grande Piazza being prepared
for the Saracen Joust

It was now Thursday, the temperature was climbing again back into the mid 30's, and

Not sure what this was for,
Bill's looking into this ......

we didn't want to arrive in Florence over the weekend as we thought that would probably be busier than through the week - from a tourist point of view. So we

Looking toward Isola Polvese

decided to return to the lovely little camp of Parco Dei Pini with it's swimming pool and relax ( I know, I know, how much more can we relax!!) till the end of the week. It is the perfect place, reasonably quiet & uncrowded (particularly as we are still in peak holiday season - which should finish next week).Yesterday we hired a double kayak and paddled the 40 minutes out to the larger of the 3 islands on the lake, and spent a pleasant couple of hours walking around it, up and over it, and through it. And enjoyed a very cold beer with lunch. Then it was back to camp and into the pool as it was the warmest part of the day.(No siesta for us) Later in the afternoon walked the short distance to San

Fishing Fleet of San Feliciano

Feliciano for a gelato & some veges. Have I said how wonderful the Gelato's are here, particularly the chocolate, nice and bitter (which is the only flavour I choose, except for that time I made a mistake and got nuttella gelato! I do not like nuttella even if most of Italy love it). Bill is far more adventurous and tries all sorts of weird combinations as they like to put two or three mixtures onto your cone - I always have two - chocolate & chocolate!