"come back in like... 3 hours"

after Perugia, we decided to head to a campground on Lake Trasimeno and chill for a couple nights. after quite a hike from the train station, we finally found it and checked in. after our few months in Europe, we had already learned to accept the typical laziness and extreme lack of customer service, but Camping Lido Trasimeno really took it to new levels.

for example, all the pictures you can find of the place on the internet look something like this, or maybe a picture of people partying around a bad ass pool or hot tub:

imported sand? From their website

but i can only imagine that those pictures were taken 5 years ago or more because even the simplest things to upkeep have not been done. it was sad really, seeing all their boats that didn't get covered over the winter, or even turned over, just totally ruined.. not to mention one of the pools didn't even get covered. all around us, things were falling apart and asking about any service that was allegedly open (restaurant, bicycles, sand on the beach, internet,...) always led to one of two responses: "sorry, we are still opening" or "we aren't open yet". granted, we were the only people staying there, but considering there were 6 or 7 people "working" and we were checked in, it was pretty reasonable to assume they were open.

anyway, we just like to be dramatic.. it was actually a really awesome site, if only because it was so remote, yet still on the shore of the lake and surrounded by medium sized mountains. also, that first night, we decided if the employees were so apathetic about their own site, why should we care? so rather than asking permission for anything so that they could say no without thinking about it (it's the european way), we started scavenging for wood around the campground, including some of their old palettes and pieces from their quickly collapsing dock. i also bought some "fire-starters" which were actually just little dense cubes soaked in gasoline. then we had a pretty monster fire at our site and got fall down drunk on some local Lemoncello knockoff. (and i only say fall down drunk because carmen actually fell into my chair and knocked me down, then almost fell into the fire)

Lemonce is the drink of kings. From Italy: Trasimeno

like at any great fire, we spent much of the time debating who got to hold the best fire poking stick. From Italy: Trasimeno

having the fire probably doesn't seem that unusual, but europeans don't understand wanting to start a fire when you're camping AT ALL. at one point in the night (a few other people had started to show up by then), another camper walks by and in a strong french accent says, "where are you from?" "america." "oh, of course.. bar-b-que, non?"

the next day, we decide to rent some bikes, so around noon we walk up to the front desk where 2 people are working, one guy just sitting with his head in his hands. i say slowly to the woman (who we found out speaks a bit of english):

"can we rent two of the bikes?"
she translates to the guy, who never budges from his head-in-hands position.
girl: "yes, but you need to wait until later in the afternoon."
me (confused):"ok.. when?"
after conferring with her friend: "after 3."
i looked at my watch and look back to her: "umm.. is there any way we can get them a little sooner than that?"
she translates to the guy, who lets out a long sigh, SLOWLY stands up and walks over to unlock the bike room. this was far from the end of the guy's problems though. every time there was a new problem, such as the tires, obviously flat after being left all winter, he would try to explain to me how there was nothing he could do, the bikes were broken.. i would explain i knew perfectly well how to pump up a tire, he would sigh a long sigh again and pump them up himself. repeat that whole description when the brakes needed adjusting and repeat again when one bike had dropped a chain. but, whatever, "you've gotta pay the troll toll if you want to get the boy's soul."

my muslim friend carmen watches the bikes. From Italy: Trasimeno

once we had those bikes though, the trail riding through the woods around the lake was really damn fun. we rode out to the town Castiglione del Lago, which has an awesome old walled pedestrian town on top of a big hill, with a castle at one end. we could hardly walk 50 feet without being offered tasters of wine, cheese, and cured pork cutlets from any of the shop-keepers (who all hilariously sold the exact same thing in the exact same packaging).

storming the castle. From Italy: Trasimeno

heading down from Castiglione. From Italy: Trasimeno

after the bike ridin' we spent the night exactly the same way, with fire and booze, then woke up, packed up, got a ride to the station from the extremely loud and annoying campsite owner (who spent most of his morning screaming at his employees (or family, we don't know) about how they were idiots and couldn't do anything right), and got ready for our next stop, a ridiculously short trip to Florence.