Lake Garda

Lake Garda is a really huge fresh water lake, and is surrounded by quaint little towns full of shops and restaurants and alleyways.

Our hotel in Garda was only a two minute walk from the lake, and all the lake towns could easily be traveled to by foot, bike, bus, or ferry boat.

April 14th
There is a traveling open air market, and on Wednesdays it is at Lazise, a 15 minute bus ride from Garda.
The town is built around a huge old castle and surrounded by walls. The market spanned the length of the water front and was similar to that of Florence, but the atmosphere was much more relaxed.

I finally bought some stuff!!!

The Desigual Skirt
Desigual is a Spanish clothing company known for making apparel that is like no other. They use bold patterns and bright colors and make some really nice clothes. Really expenisve too. Nothing I could ever afford, even if we pretended the prices were in dollars and not euros.

I was not surprised when I saw lots of skirts and dresses in the market that were clearly Desigual knock-offs. Not that they weren't cute, but you could tell the fabric was thin and cheap and I wasn't interested.

Then I spotted this skirt. 

The tags and branding looked authentic. The material was thick and soft, and of yes, the skirt was adorable! Only €32 (okay, so it wasn't like they were giving it away, but hey).

Now that I've had a chance to check out their website, I found this in the spring collection. A bit shorter and with tricolor stitching on the bottom, but essentially my skirt.
So I'm not quite sure how this one came to be. Factory reject or high end knockoff, I don't know, but it's authentic enough for me.

Then I found this olive dress with a cool hemline, that I would describe as the asymmetrical bubble hem. It was €15 and I only had 14 so I tried to haggle and was unsuccessful so I had to go and borrow a euro! Everyone told me I could haggle at the markets, but the merchants never seemed to accept my offers.

The grey fedora was €12 and the yellow scarf was €6. I also couldn't find any country of origin on the fedora, which is suspicious. Generally when something is made in Italy they make it nice and obvious. A tremendous number of things in the market were made in China and India, I had to check absolutely everything, because really, why go to Italy and buy stuff made in China?!

I also got this straw hat for only €5 (photographic evidence of 'made in italy')

Day outfit

Taken in the mirror of a cool little shop;

Striped shirt Gap - Mustard cords Gap - Denim military jacket NY&Co. - Floral scarf Avon - Bag Avon - Shoes (oops, can't see them!) Black converse

Evening Outfit

Striped shirt Gap - Floral Skirt TJMaxx - Black blazer Khol's - Black flats Steve Madden - Black bag Bandolino - Yellow Scarf Market in Italy

Hot guy of the day

Cute couple of the day

(they really were adorable, they begged at tables for food like dogs!)