Gary started day 5 with a 6:00am 4.9 mile  run along the peninsula of Sirmione, see Endomondo link https://www.endomondo.com/workouts/504614035/4632988

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then toured Castello scaligerow which was only a block from the hotel.  The castle was expanded several times over the centuries and included a drawbridge:

and a large protected waterway:

The weather was overcast with intermittent light rain unlike the gorgeous weather we have had until now. After touring the castle we spent a couple of more hours walking around absorbing the local charm.  Here is a lakeside selfie using the  camera timer:

(notice the swan attacking the shoe  of a gentleman behind us!)

We got permission from the policeman at the checkpoint to drive through the Castello scaligero onto the narrow streets of Sermione driving slowly into the sea of pedestrians to get to our hotel and pick up our luggage.  Gary managed to scrape one of the side-view mirrors of our brand new Citreon squeezing between some people and a building.  We made it back out otherwise unscathed after yielding and backing up for another oncoming car trying to get through the castle gate.

The weather forecast for the next few days is supposed to be rainy but we decided to drive toward Cinque Terre anyway.  We drove into the mountains on the Western side of Northern Italy and on to La Spezia which is a large port city on the Mediterranean thinking that it would be easier to find lodging there than closer to Cinque Terre.  La Spezia has the  most nightmarish parking situation we have ever seen; narrow streets packed full of cars and not a vacant parking spot in sight.  We managed to find a reasonably priced hotel that had a parking garage about three blocks away, but at least we didn’t have to fight for the parking spot.  We were pretty sore from the walking we had done and so had a nice dinner in the downtown shopping area of La Spezia and then crashed for the night.