Day off today so Hollie and I have a later breakfast which is a lot easier with fewer people in the restaurant. The waiters still don’t show enough attentiveness towards keeping the food and coffee machine topped up. The hotel is crying out for someone to take responsibility and organise the waiting staff into a better organised team.
It is another very hot day as we walk through the large market that has descended on Desenzano. Is it me or does it seem hotter in amongst the market stalls?
Hollie buys a t – shirt but I am not really a market person and probably would have given the whole thing a wide berth if I was on my own! If you like markets then it is a good one but by the time we reached the end it was both too hot and too busy.
We buy some postcards but have to go to a Tabacchi for our stamps where we learn a new word in asking for the stamps. Having bought the cards they need to be written so a coffee is the answer! Hollie posts them in a post box and they arrived home in two days! Quicker than the local post is sometimes!
We have decided to catch the ferry to Sirmione which is the first stop on the ferry route and only takes about twenty minutes. We are not alone as a few of our group also catch this ferry.
Sirmione is as beautiful as ever but seems even hotter than Desenzano’s market.
Sirmione is a town with a fortified entrance and is stuck out on a peninsula at the southern end of the lake. It is very popular and busy and it is easy to see why.
We decide to walk to a beach away from the centre where we have a paddle before stopping for a drink in the cafe on the beach. From here we follow the footpath along the lakeside to as far as it can go where it ends at another beach which has its own restaurant.
I wanted to see if we could walk around the peninsula but we have to turn back. Instead of going back along the lake we head inland through some gardens that bring us out at the end of the main street of the town. I have never been to this part before and it is lovely.
We enjoy the town before finding a restaurant in the main square for lunch. All we seem to do is eat and drink!
Lunch is a toasted sandwich with a few chips for Hollie and I have a wonderful ciabatta filled with mozzarella and tomato. All washed down with a couple of beers.
I don’t know why but there are statues of animals all around the town with a large elephant by the lake to a gorilla near the entrance and crocodile hanging from an arm over the moated entrance.
This makes us laugh as we have a passenger who wears a hat all the time rather like Crocodile Dundee and plays up to it. Funnily enough he is the next person we see!
Our return ferry is due to depart at 14:40 and half an hour before that we decide to sit and wait at the lake where the ferry comes into. It is very hot sat here so we move along to the jetty where there is some breeze. Phew this is warm.
Twenty minutes later we are back at the hotel and sit outside drinking water and having a chat with Ian and Carol, two of our passengers.
Lovely to go back to a freezing cold room!
Dinner is becoming a chore with the constant battle going on with the staff to improve their service. I am not enjoying meal times.
Luckily we are sat on a table with Dot and Norma who take things in their stride and don’t seem to worry too much.
We are being served by one man tonight and he is very willing and keen but doesn’t really have a clue about service. Again I refer to my earlier comment about having a leader in the restaurant, something that is normally a given in Italy, and it is really lacking here.
The young lad is doing okay but the outside part of the hotel restaurant is steadily filling up with customers and that spells trouble.
Sure enough, when half of our dinner plates had been cleared, our waiter is seen outside showing people to their seats and taking food in and out.
We have been left stranded and I am furious. I go out to the kitchen entrance and find a lady who is supposed to be in charge (Elizabeth?) and who speaks some English. She is left under no illusion about how I feel and I demand something be done. Surely I shouldn’t have to be like this each evening.
I sit back down only to see another young lad appear with the dessert and start placing them on tables that are still full of dirty dinner plates, which apart from being wrong there is very little room for anything else on the table.
Am seething by now and immediately jump up and tell the young lad not to serve the dessert until the table is clear of dirty plates. I probably look like a right stroppy git but this is becoming infuriating. Again I remonstrate with Elizabeth and eventually something is done. This is just not good enough.
I made sure the coffee room was open but by all accounts one of the passengers had to switch the coffee machine on!!
Hollie and I go for our usual walk and a drink before having an earlier night.
No comments:
Post a Comment