This past holiday weekend, I got invited by an old high school friend to join him and friends on a trip to Gardasee, in northern Italy. There were about 15 of us, me being the only nongerman–which was awesome. Most of the time I’ve spent here has been primarily with other internationals, so it was cool to actually hang out with Germans in Germany….ha
Italy was beautiful. And the drive there in itself was amazing: through the Austrian Alps!

Driving south from Munich, it’s pretty basic German countryside: green rolling hills, with intermittent forested areas. However, approaching the Austrian border, the Alps just rise up out of nowhere. It’s just like flat fields, then boom, mountains. Once in Austria, it’s basically just an onslaught of stereotypically great views.. After the Alps, the landscape of Italy was completely different, but just as schön in it’s own way. Verry green, very steep terrain, with endless fields of vineyards..
At Gardasee, we stayed in a couple “bungalows” in this little vacation community, about 100 meters away from the lake. The weather wasn’t great, and it even rained on us several times, but we made the best of it. I’m pretty sure the BBQ grill was going the entire time that we were there, and there was always a cold beer waiting if you wanted one. The lake itself was absolutely freezing, as it’s surrounded by mountains, and the water is from snow-runoff. However that didn’t stop us from jumping in! Needless to say we weren’t in it long, but we all had a blast with our shenanigans.

We stayed at Gardasee for 2 nights, and then departed to the small town of Laives, Italy about 2 hours away. There was such a strange mix of Italian and German/Bavarian cultures, and pretty much everyone there spoke Austrian German. The style and architecture of the town reminded me so much of southern California; it was pretty cool to see some of the roots of much of socal’s pseudo-Italian style.
But anyways, the weekend was a great success, and great experience! I have a lot of videos, so I’m thinking of making a quick video about it.. We’ll see. As usual though in the meantime, there’s plenty of pictures