mercoledì 25 agosto 2010

Sirmione: The Bad and the Ugly

For most of the week that we spent at Lake Garda, the weather was lovely and so were the people. The day we went to Sirmione, however, there was a terrible thunderstorm and we had an experience that ranks right up there with having my bags stolen at Milano Centrale in terms of nastiness.

Sirmione is tiny town located at the end of an improbably long and skinny peninsula that sticks out into the lake from the southern shore. The old town is guarded by a castle fort and only people who live there are allowed to drive over the bridge that leads inside the ity walls. The town extends the length of the peninsula, however, with houses, hotels, car parks and the odd restaurant lining the road that leads to the historic part. It's always busy, even on a stormy Thursday morning, and we had to park the car quite far from the fortress. As we got out of the car, a strong breeze was stirring in the trees, the sky was darkening and the greyish green waves on the lake were lapping hungrily at the shore. We weren't five minutes from the car when the giant raindrops began to fall.


We immediately started to get absolutely soaked and decided to look for shelter. We ducked under the awning of hotel, where several other people were also sheltering. Realising that the rain might be on for a while, we decided to do the polite thing and order coffees, rather than just standing there taking advantage of the hotel's driveway.

Our politeness, however, turned out to be entirely wasted on the hotel staff, who were pretty much the rudest waiters I've ever met (and I've been living in Paris for a year). They communicated in grunts from behind twisted lips and seemed to be entirely incapable of eye contact. We asked if we could sit inside, where we could see an almost empty restaurant with space for at least fifty people, with more spaces in a conservatory that looked out over the lake on the other side of the building. They said no, so we adjusted the position of the tables in an attempt to shelter ourselves from the torrential rain outside and the almost equally torrential drips that were coming through the gaps in the shelter.

By the time they grudgingly brought us our drinks, the puddles in the driveway had amalgamated into a flood that was rapidly encroaching on the ground around our feet. Again we asked if we could go inside. Again the waiter grunted, disappeared and refused to make eye contact. When he reappeared, I pointed out to him that the water was actually lapping at our toes as well as dripping into our coffee and again he disappeared.


A little while later, the kitchen porter appeared brandishing a brush and, to our horror, began to attempt to sweep the water off the driveway and into the road. This was clearly an impossibly task because every time a car went past, even more water would be sprayed from the gutter into the quicky expanding flood. The porter realised this and must have noticed our sympathy, because he turned round and made funny faces to express the hopelessness of the situation.

Unfortunately, this did not impress his evil overlords, who came out and shouted at him several times, grabbing his arms aggressively. I'm sure the fact that they were white and he was black had nothing to do with the fact that they thought this was an acceptable way to behave...Meanwhile me and my friends stood there feeling sick at having to watch this scene but, with the rain pouring down and nowhere to go, we couldn't really leave, so we had no choice but to stand there reformulating every opinion we had ever had about Italian hospitality.

Actually, though, this situation was unlike anything I have ever experienced in Italy and I refuse to revise my ideas based on that one horrible experience. I've had people trick me and lie to me and short change me, but I have never, ever seen anyone be so downright rude and nasty, either to a customer or to a member of staff. Eventually the rain died down and we left. My friend gave the poor kitchen porter a ten euro note as we went away and the few hotel residents who were sitting in the dining room all clapped, but if I were them, I would have been horrified to find myself staying in a place like that. I wish I had the name of the hotel but it was too wet to check as we left, but if you're ever tempted to stay in a peach-coloured hotel on the way to Sirmione with a conservatory at the back, driveway that looks liable to flood at the front and waiting staff who are unable to smile or look you in the eye, make sure that you think again.

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