Realizing the day would be another scorcher,with the help of our new hotel friend Fiona, we decided on a day trip. After breakfast we took off for Rovereto, less than half an hour south of Trento to visit the MART–modern/contemporary art museum. It was such a surprise that a city as small as Rovereto would have such a large and sophisticated museum. The building itself was impressive. Here’s the entrance courtyard (back to the museum:

At the end of the visit we went outside to the sculpture garden. The works are huge. I like how this one’s line seems to mimic the view:

Then, like just about every other family in the area, we drove to Riva del Garda. The lake is a natural beauty but the people watching was so distracting sometimes I forgot where we were. Where we parked the car it was really hot–like mid 90’s but when you get close to the lake there is a wonderful cool wind (not breeze) blowing. It was instant comfort. We sat and strolled; Amy and Kev actually went into the water which was much rougher (think real waves) than I would ever imagine. The beach is mostly stones but for just a few feet, then there’s a lovely soft grassy area where we sat in the shade. I took most of these pictures from where we sat:





It was a feast of human interest.
We came back to the hotel and very quickly went downstairs to the bar for a spritz or beer and some little snacks they were serving. Amy said they were “Costco” food and I think she nailed it. She and I sat outside gazing at the piazza duomo and feeling the excitement building in town for the Euro cup final between Italy and Spain. Lot of people were in blue shirts, carrying Italian flags, faces painted. Big time!
Fiona reserved us a place for an early dinner which was an easy walk. We all had pasta dishes–mine was a tortellini filled with ricotta and local truffles with shave “grey” truffles on top. Quite good! I liked Amy’s very green spinach gnocchi. All the food was good and the bill for the 4 of us was just 72 euros.
We walked home through the piazza. The light was beautiful.

Lots of young people gathering all over the place with large screen TV’s at many outside bars. I got red/green/white stripes painter on my face and we came up to watch the disappointing game. We went down for gelato at half time but by then the crowds were already subdued by the increasingly obvious inevitability of the loss.
I called Kathryn at the half and she answered screaming “Viva Espana” and her voice made my night!