We decided we would go to the Duomo this morning and we were both glad we did. The only slight shame is how much scaffolding was up but I suppose it's not peak season so they're getting things done.

The previous night we had met a group as weird as the hostel itself but there was one guy who came from a village of 100 people (near Leicester apparently) and who had come travelling on his own. He seemed petrified and we were both scared for him. We wanted to adopt him and bring him along with us! But he walked in to the centre with us before we parted ways.

After the scary tram experience we opted for a taxi, a wise choice in our eyes and money well spent so we could catch our train and relax. The journey went relatively seamlessly ...ignoring the east European girls who were talking about us the whole way and getting lost within about 3 metres of the station. Good old google maps sorted us out and the apartment is perfect!

The lady showed us a hamper of food, drinks, tea, coffee, soap, hair dryer, CDs maps and leaflets... She was lovely and the view over the city is special.

When looking through the leaflets we realised really how close lake Garda was so we decided at the spur of the moment to go to Lake Garda for the late afternoon. It was beautiful and we got our gelato (very important) for the day before finding a little beach to relax on. Not all the comfortable on the stones we hired a pedalo for an hour (no panic attacks were experienced) before trekking it to a supermarket to get the last few bits for dinner.

Walking in to the supermarket was like reaching heaven. You'd never seen two girls so excited. We had walked along this dusky road past a basketball court and a football court. Italian men do not like to hide their feelings or hide that they're checking you out (in all fairness neither do the Italian women) and given the boys who were doing this for once it seemed alright!

Beanie cooked (of course) and Lucy prepared our own aperitivo (ripped bits of bread dipped in pesto and balsamic and peanuts). With our two euro twenty bottle of white wine (reasonably good actually) we're both going in to an extreme state of relaxation and planning our blitz of Verona tomorrow.