Bergamo to Limone. Help needed

[anne2]

Perhaps I should have added that at certain times, the buses can run extremely late due to the volume of traffic around the lake and seem to take forever, especially at weekends! For longer trips, we and many of the locals, often found the boats to be by far the quickest way to get from A to B across the lake. As the buses you mention don't arrive in Limone until 1651 or 1752 dependant upon whether you go via Brescia or Desanzano, to my mind, a ferry arriving at 1612 is the quickest means of getting there and the most relaxing! Limone is not exactly huge so assuming your hotel is failrly central it will not be far from the ferry terminal.

PS: Limone is a real sun trap, so pack plenty of cream!

[Harriers9]

Well we got there and eventually got back :(

Going we didn't do too badly except for finding the Limone bound bus station. The bus from Bergamo stopped in Brescia at the bus station but what we didn't know was the bus for Limone would leave from an entirely diferent place.

The miserable woman at the ticket counter wasn't interested in telling us apart from waving her hand at the stairs. We went down but could find no sign of a bus stop. Went back upstairs to ask her again and met the same response.

After asking around outside we finally found it two blocks away. Got a ticket for Limone only to find the bus stopped at Gargano and the driver chucked us off and then went back. He wasn't too helpful either so we studied the out of date timetables and found it would be two hours until the next bus.

Luckily an Irish girl who worked in the village came to the bus stop and she helped us out by pointing out where to catch the Limone bus from.

Got into Limone and again we were just dropped in the middle of nowhere so I asked at a hotel and they were very helpful in getting us a taxi for the final mile to our hotel.

The place we were at - The Hotel Villa Elite - was a bit of a climb to get to but the staff there were wonderful and helped us as much as possible by taking us down in the car and back up again whenever we needed.

They also helped us with getting back to the airport by sorting out a timetable for us but then we had some really bad storms that caused a landslide to block one of the tunnels from Limone to Gargano.

We had to catch the bus at Gargano for 9:30am so we set out at 8:00am to catch it and arranged for a taxi to take us via the diversion around the blocked tunnel but after agreeing to a price, €10, she then headed straight for the blocked tunnel. When she reached the disaster area she stopped in dis-belief and then turned around to take us back saying she couldn't get through that way but would have to go via the mountain route for an extra €40.

I just couldn't believe that a taxi company did not know about a blocked tunnel two miles from their own village that had been caused by a storm three days previously.

Anyway we agreed to the price increase as long as she got us to Gargano for 9:30am. It took over 90 minutes to get there after meeting more blocked roads and following heavy construction lorries halfway up mountains. We had missed the bus.

Once in Gargano she asked for €100 but I told her to 'urinate elsewhere' because due to her incompetence we had missed our connection.

We then had to catch a later bus to Brescia and then the train to Bergamo for our flight at 15:40 with a check in time of 15:00.

We got into Bergamo at 14:50 hopped into a taxi who then got us to the airport at two minutes after the flight had closed. Ryanair refused to let us on even though the flight was still 38 minutes later. We pleaded with her but she was adamant.

We ended up having to pay a further €150 for tickets to Bristol the following morning and spent the night very un-comfortably on hard metal seats in the airport.

At least we had the departure lounge to look forward to at 8:15am. No! it's got the same awful seating.

All told we ended up paying around an extra €230 just for the sake of two minutes and an incompetent taxi driver. Ryanair said that our argument is with the taxi company if we wish to take it further but the taxi had been waiting on the rank, was unmarked and I have no idea who they were. I contacted the hotel and the Limone tourist office about them too but they didn't know either.

This was not the best experience to have but we have learnt from our mistakes and the next time we go to some off the beaten track place we'll get a package deal. It's just not worth seeing my wife suffer the fatigue again to undertake any more DIY holidays.

We shall still do DIY for City breaks though.

Limone itself was beautiful but too steep for her. Next time we go - and we will - we shall stay around Sirmione, Garda or Desanzano where the terrain is much flatter.

Now for next years holiday? What's Naples like?