in fair Verona...

Having laid back sufficiently by Lake Garda we decided to check the scene at Verona, just a half hour away (except we decided to drive around Lake Garda first, stopping for s swim and a picnic lunch en route, naturally). The quirky little campsite had great views, was run by hippies - in fact I was mistaken for a campsite worker the next morning - and was just a short walk from the very pretty walled old town, nestled as it is in the bend of the river.

The city is unsurprisingly a World Heritage site, preserving side by side Roman relics, a medieval castle, Gothic churches, Renaissance palaces and Venetian piazzas. It was in one of the latter that we sipped the local wine and watched the world go by as we made the most of the Italian tradition of aperitivi. Basically if you go into a bar in Italy between 7 and 9pm and order a drink you will either be brought a selection of free snacks by the waiter or else invited to help yourself from a free buffet. In the cheaper establishments it's a case of paper plates and mini slices of pizza, but here - seeing as we were paying what we like to call "view tax" on our glasses of the local Bordelino wine - it was china bowls, marinated zucchini, spiced croutons and fried chicory. Delicious. We rather exploited the bar's range of snacks to the extent that neither of us needed any supper.

Afterwards we wandered the lively streets taking in beautiful courtyards and ancient walls, clocking the Roman Arena - which is now used for concerts rather than mass slaughter - and grabbing an ice-cream.

We stumbled upon the Casa Guilietta - supposedly the home of Shakespeare's Juliet and now quite clearly a shrine to love. Every inch of the walls by the entrance was covered in amorous graffiti. A discreet "TB loves KS" was added in black biro.

A stroll along the river took us back up to the campsite past many a hand-holding couple and the Roman Theatre, currently playing host to Hamlet. On the way we paused among yet more couples to admire again the view from Castle San Pedro. We could understand why so many had gathered there - Verona is a truly romantic and passionate city.

If you can't stand the heat....

... change your plans and go swimming.

Theo and I have become the last word in flexibility and seamless last-minute plan-changing. Our initial itinerary involving a visit to the Reggio cheese market on the way to Lake Como was abandoned on the autostrada and instead we turned off just after Modena to go north to Verona and Lake Garda.

After skirting Verona in search of that necessary evil, a supermarket, we arrived at Lake Garda, which was initially hidden behind a line of hotels, campsites and beach shops. But once the view began to open up we realised both how huge the lake is (more than 55km long, 16km wide in places) and how beautiful, especially towards the northern shores, as pine-studded mountains rear up to cast their reflections in the water.

We found a campsite that was thankfully relatively cool in the punishing 33 degree heat where Sheena could be parked under the shade of olive and alder trees and where a gentle breeze could be felt coming from the lake. Basically, our main motivation for going to the lake (rather than heading for Venice as we'd originally intended) was simply to have some respite from the soaring temperatures.

So we've been making the most of it. Three dips in Lake Garda itself and another three in the excellent campsite swimming pool. Last night in Bologna, Theo and I were still feeling uncomfortably hot at midnight. Tonight at dusk, the air feels pleasant, the scent of barbeque is in the air and we may take another swim before we turn in. This is the life.

One final thought: here at the Lake Garda campsite, apart from us, almost everyone is either German (probably 70 per cent) or Dutch. At the campsite on the Adriatic, where we were two nights ago, it was almost entirely full of Italians. Is it related to the salinity of the water, I wonder?