Rejoice, Ding Dong, the spell is broken
Can you step from the miserable state of UK into a picture postcard? ,into another dimension? A parallel reality? with a single Easyjet flight ? – change history and change the future? YES it would seem from here.

No more darkness & deceit, no more greed, no blood for oil, the gun carriage is gone. Like passing from a tunnel into the light, the gloom is lifted, the snow has gone, the rain has stopped and the warmth has finally come. The silenced bells ring out in glorious celebration of the day.

There are clusters of scores of pointy green pencil trees all along the shore of Lake Garda – cypress, and flat calm water lapping vertical rockface cliffs, leading to peaks and passes, topped with snow merging with the clouds and scattered with mist. We cruised to Limone and to Sirmione.
On the boat, we met a party of Swiss and Swedish radical fundamentalist Christians – quite barking, but their perception of conspiracies everywhere was initially very seductive: responsible for the world crisis of capitalism – the Corporation of the City of London, the Fabian Society, the Order of the Garter, the Duke of Kent and the Freemasons and the boy scouts. We talked about creation and quarks and dark energy, they belonged to 3 different sects and had a superiority condescending complex vis-à-vis other world religions along with a seriously distorted attitude to gays, so we didn’t go into any other “usually excluded groups” and parted amicably with an agreement that we think differently.
Stunning buildings with elaborate swallow tailed fortifications, towers and arches all over. Frescoes on ceilings, shutters on balconies, marble and lacey cast iron gates and narrow cobbled alleys, squares & fountains and wells. Very manicured, not nouveau riche more archaic dosh.