Swimming Abroad: Lake, Sea, Stream

1.    Key-shaped Garda Lake, lying under Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, is the largest and some say the cleanest lake in Italy. I wanted to swim at Point San Vigilio, where the lake narrowed and deepened, so Lasse and I boarded a bus for a supposedly 75-minute ride that turned into two and a half hours as traffic thickened and slowed on the narrow two-lane road around the lake. We congratulated ourselves on not having rented a car and enjoyed the sights: Bardolino vineyards, water parks and amusement parks, camping areas filled with RVs, throngs of young people and families. In Garda, we boarded a local bus and traveled more quickly. At Point San Vigilio, we got off the bus and walked down the gravel road to Baia delle Sirene, Mermaid’s Bay, where there was a food booth and a beach.

    Lasse said what did I want to drink, and I said, "I want to swim." I swam in clear, gray-green water under an overcast sky, out to the end of the bay, then across the bay to the other side, avoiding the motorboats and reaching uselessly for the Dolomite Mountains mysterious in clouds. It was such a good swim that after a good Italian lunch at the Taverna San Vigilio (veal with tuna sauce for me; prosciutto and melon for Lasse), I took another swim on our way back up the road to the bus stop.

2.    In the mid- to late-nineteenth century Swedish royalty and aristocracy enjoyed sailing and bathing on Marstrand, an island in the Swedish archipelago off the coast of Gothenburg. Now a summer resort, Marstrand is usually crowded with people strolling through the town, by the piers, along the shores, walking over smooth gray granite, past dark pools in the woods, through patches of pink heather, and enjoying brief swims in the bracing sea.

But there were few visitors in early September. Even the famous Berg’s Konditori, where we had lunch, was sparsely attended.

                                                    At Berg’s Konditori


    After lunch we walked to the other side of the island, where the swimming area has a special place for “women’s nude swimming.” Before easing into the water there, I cast an eye over the sea for jellyfish because, as Lasse  told me years ago, “One jellyfish can ruin an otherwise idyllic day.” In other years there have been so many jellyfish I have had a friend be a lookout to alert me to the floating danger as I swam. Today, with no jellyfish, no currents or tides, no boats in the bay, a flock of cormorants drying their wings on a rock island, a comfortably cold, gray-green sea, and a companion waiting patiently, I looked at the open sea in front of me and felt I could swim all the way to England.

3.    When Lasse suggested an excursion to a pair of lakes called Radasjön and Stensjön, I looked forward to a good long swim, but a cold wind on Radasjön nullified that plan. Instead, Lasse led me across the road and down a grassy bank under some trees, where the lake water rushed out of Radasjön to become a stream on its way to Stensjön and where he takes his grandson fishing. Lasse spread our picnic blanket on the grass. I put on my swimsuit and walked into the water, catching my breath at the cold.

    I swam easily downstream, watching the scenery slip by. Just past the woods, the stream opened into a wide bend with a large patch of cattails on the left and water-lily-like plants at the edge of the woods on the right. Rounding the bend, I passed a duck swimming among shallow rocks. I was like a duck myself, so natural in the water that the people walking through the woods next to the stream never noticed me. I passed a riparian house, found deeper water, swam until I could see the bridge at Stensjön, where my knees began hitting rocks in the shallow water, so I turned around and headed upstream.

    Leisure swimming was at an end. Now I had to work. If I stopped to rest and tread water, I lost ground. I pushed on, slowly gaining on the distance, until I rounded the bend and saw Lasse at our picnic spot. I aimed crosswise to the current, then walked in shallow water onto land and, drenched with happiness, was immediately wrapped in a thick terrycloth robe.