Gardaland - Italy's most famous amusement park
What it's like to visit the most famous amusement park in Italy and unwittingly push yourself in one of the scariest attractions there, equal to your small children, read in the next part of our camper trip to the Western Balkans and Italy.
To the previous travelogue –> Day 7: From Croatia to Lake Garda in Italy + Natura Viva Park
More information about the route, costs and all travelogues of the trip can be found HERE.
Day 8: Gardland
Gardaland is one of the best amusement parks in Europe and the world and the most popular park in Italy. It is located in northern Italy, 30 kilometers from Verona near Lake Garda. This amusement park has attractions for both the youngest children and adults. In addition to the amusement park, Gardaland also houses an aquarium where a variety of marine species can be observed.
The working hours of Gardaland It changes depending on the season, but in the summer when we visited it was open from 10 am to 11 pm. Current information can be seen Here.
The price of tickets only for the park (without the aquarium) is 42 euros for adults and 37 euros for children under 10. Children under 100 cm are free. Every weekday evening you can enter the park after 6 p.m., then the price is half - 22 euros. Note that there are often promotions on park entrance fees. In Bulgaria, for example, some time ago there were some coupons for a great discount (1 adult pays and 2-3 children enter for free), who went with the purchase of Kellogg's cereals. Similarly, discount coupons were distributed in Italy when buying San Terra water. Separately, many coupons can be found on ebay where you pay for 1 person, and 2 enter.
So, with a brisk step, loaded with water and sandwiches in the backpack, we arrived at the Gardaland entrance at 9:30 a.m. There was no long queue at the cash registers, but the square in front of the entrance had already been filled with people. At exactly 10 o'clock a short performance began, during which various cartoon characters, including Peppa Pig, danced, sang the Gardaland anthem and welcomed us. Then the gates opened…
At the beginning of the park near the entrance/exit are the more baby attractions for children from 2 to 6 years of age. Here is the place to note that our children are far from the bravest children and usually prefer more children's and safer attractions. Well, in the beginning we had no worries - together with them we climbed the most, but the baby's carousels 🙂
The house in the shape of a tree
Right from the entrance, our attention was attracted by a very interesting tree, which seems to have come out of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. It is located in the center of the park and after the baby attractions we headed directly to it.
When entering Gardaland at the entrance, everyone receives a map of the park, on which they are indicated which attractions for which age are suitable and allowed. For example, these attractions are indicated in green color, which are for children under 120 centimeters. Those that are for children over 120 cm are indicated in blue, and for children over 140-150 cm high or in another word - the most dangerous attractions and the scariest trains.
So, we go to such an interesting tree with the thought that it is marked with a green color on the map and is suitable for the youngest visitors. We got in line of people wanting to enter, then left our backpacks in a certain place, as we were told, and went inside. We found ourselves in some dark room where a terrible voice rang out, chattering something in Italian. Our children started to get scared, but we reassured them that there was nothing to worry about - after all, we are at a baby's attraction (according to the map designation 🙂 ) Then they opened the doors and we entered a huge hall when there were seats on both sides. We had no idea what would happen in just a few minutes...
We settled into the seats, told us to raise our hands up and were automatically fastened with various irons and then it started... These seats started to swing like a huge gondola. Everyone in the hall started screaming. The walls were also rotating and we completely lost track of what was up and what was below. At one point the gondola stopped and we see that the door through which we entered the hall is located in the attic!
You must be wondering how our children perceived what was happening: Well, Crisco (age 4) just looked around and was curious about what was happening next to him and didn't look too scared at Avi's expense (8 years old), who was constantly shouting next to me or Rather, together with me 🙂 The important thing is that in the end we all survived 🙂 It turned out to be after a deeper look at the map that this attraction was marked with a red circle ( ! ) and not with green, as we thought in the whole time.
–> Browse and book a budget hotel in the Lake Garda area with a discount. See HERE!
Another attraction that impressed us and on which our children were afraid to get on was a train where the rails were submerged in water and there was a climb and then a spooo. There we got enough to cool off on this very hot summer July day. We also boarded the Transgardaland Express, a train that took the whole park around and saw it from above. The children really liked the different types of trains.
Симеон, като “най-голямото дете” в нашето семейство се спусна по няколко пъти на различни страшни влакчета и беше много доволен 🙂 Също така всички се качихме на една доста висока кула, от която се вижда целият парк. Кулата се върти бавно на 360 градуса и предлага страхотна панорама към всички страни.
There were many other attractions that the children did not want to get on because they were afraid. What was the icing on the cake, so to speak, was the children's water park next to the exits of the park. It is a large slide with several branches, shallow water - well, a big kefff. There were various girls from the Gardaland staff who followed and released a certain number of children in groups every half hour. Emi, our children entered two consecutive groups from Merak, and in the third - illegally (they jumped over the fence of the akrapark) 🙂
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Exhausted by the long day in Gardaland, we headed back to the camper. We drove to our place for the night. We were honestly wondering if we should stay back to sleep in the same place or travel a bit from the road to Pisa, the city we were supposed to explore the next day. In the end, we settled on the second option.
In the area of Lake Garda, we had planned to explore the city of Sirmione, which is also located near Gdaland, but unfortunately we did not have time and energy for it.
Gardaland – Chiaravalle – 120 km. (2:00 p.m.)
The place where we slept is located at the following coordinates:
44.926676 9.972186
N 44°55'36.03″ E 9°58'19.86″
The parking lot is huge and is very suitable for families traveling with a camper, as there is a green clearing and a children's playground right next to it. There are also 2 fountains from which we poured drinking water and filled our camper tank. The town was called Chiaravalle and was more of a monastery with several apartment buildings around. The parking lot where we stopped is located 200 meters from the monastery in question. The place is quite quiet and remote. When we arrived there was only one other camper that had occupied one fountain and accordingly we parked next to the other. We made dinner, put the children to sleep, and then stayed to admire the night sky and the moon.
To the next travelogue —-> ДЕН 9: ПИЗА, WHITE BEACH И ТОСКАНА
