Driving to the Italian Alps with two small kids – and camping: the unholy trinity of travel?

The idea of a family road trip across Europe to reach Trentino’s celebrated Lago di Ledro felt daunting. Turns out getting there was more than half the fun

Floating motionless in the deep water of northern Italy’s exquisite Lago di Ledro in beating sun, I felt the contradictory sensation of simultaneous exertion and relaxation. My heart was thumping from the front crawl I’d just done, yet my mind basked in the beauty of this tree-lined valley and my brief, heavenly solitude.

I could pretend this was fortuitous, but in truth my dash to the centre of this little lake in the south of the Trentino region – at the exact midpoint of a three-week round trip from England to Italy by car – was premeditated. As a parent of two under-fives (at that moment happily distracted on shore), I had been visualising this for months: the revitalising lake swim alone was more or less justification for the 2,000-plus road miles. What I hadn’t pictured, however, were the swallows that would join me there, gracefully swooping within metres of my body, feeding out of reach from the hubbub at the lake’s circumference and – I like to think – out of earshot of their own young, chirruping in their nests.