Campervan Therapy

The A22 to Trento is packed with the whole of Europe trying to avoid baking temperatures, so it’s a relief to hit the empty winding mountain road up to Camping Vallelaghi. 16 kilometres upwards and we’ve travelled to another dimension. White and pink limestone canines pierce the blue sky.

The wooded slopes are a cool green. Clear streams and waterfalls glitter. There’s not one, but three lakes. 

We ramble around the signed footpath to Laghi di Lamar through spruce, fir, poplar, willow and larch. The meadow is full of purple loosestrife and alpine clover as we emerge at the emerald lake and an inn on a beach.

Children swing from ropes and drop from cliffs into the lake. Kayaks sweep across the mirror calm surface. Pipistrelle bats nest in the cliffs but we don’t hang around to meet them. A party at the campsite is calling.

I’m brave enough to take to the dance floor as soon as I see that no one really knows the exact moves to the Macarena. This is just my sort of dancing as unusually for Italy no seems to be able to ballroom dance here, so I’m able to strut my stuff with random abandon.

The next day, I’m a little concerned about the signs warning of bears so I google how to behave if I come across one, but I’m not much reassured when it says if you are really trapped lie on the floor in supplication but don’t turn your back on them. Apparently, they won’t kill you, they may just cuff you about. I dread to think of sheer force of a bear’s playful cuff.  The signs urge walkers to stick to marked trails and make a racket as you go to warn them to stay away.

As we’re walking on the designated path to Lago di Terlago, I’m exhausted with loud singing to warn bears of my arrival. The fact that we meet no one else on the forested mountain path sets me on edge as I wonder whether everyone else knows something that I don’t. 

The dry-stone walls distract me though as I do love a dry-stone wall – the sheer skill of balancing big old limestone boulders one on the other without cement fills me with admiration. Cyclamens bloom on the forest floor and even from the crevices in the dry-stone walls.

Suddenly we burst into a meadow full of butterflies swarming into the air, surprised at my entry. I can’t help feeling sorry that I’ve disturbed their nectar feast. One particularly slender navy butterfly is adorned with white polka dots, so elegant it leaves me silent – a rare occurrence.

Of course we have to turn back before we get to Lake Terlago as the path becomes increasingly steep, the narrow trail clinging to the side of the mountain with far too many sheer drops for my liking, not to talk of the odd unusual, large, berry-encrusted dropping.  

To add to it all, because we haven’t the sense we were born with, we’re mountaineering in sandals. Sensible walkers would have stout boots and walking poles, but we’ve never claimed to be sensible, so Lake Terlago will have to wait for another day.