Lake Garda

Lake Garda is the largest of the well known group of lakes in northern Italy. Like Paris it’s a popular tourist destination but it’s also possible to find some quieter spots.

Getting there, accommodation and getting about

Location

Verona airport is convenient for all the Italian lakes. It’s possible to drive to northern Italy from the UK but it’s a long way and you’ll need to go over or under the Alps. However there are plenty of holiday locations in northern Italy and it’s possible to combine a visit to the lakes with the Alps or Venice or the French or Italian rivieras.

The lake itself is well served with ferries which makes it very easy to get around. However the services are limited so some careful planning is needed if you’re intending on visiting several locations in one day.

Accommodation

It’s a popular tourist area so there’s all sorts of accommodation including hotels, self catering or camping. We booked a package to Lake Garda through Thompson and flew from Birmingham to Verona. We stayed in the Hotel Piccolo in Garda which, as the name suggests, was small but very comfortable and the meals were extremely tasty.

Things To Do And See

Around Garda

Garda and its near neighbour Bardolino are generally geared towards tourism these days. However they’re very pleasant places with plenty of restaurants and cafés and some evening entertainments in the various piazzas. The climate is ideal for growing all sorts of plants and, since we came back, we’ve been trying with little success to grow oleander like the ones below. However it’s extremely unlikely that we’ll be able to replicate the bougainvillea!

Oleander

Bougainvillea

Sirmione

Sirmione is located on a narrow peninsula at the very southern end of the lake. It was a favourite destination in Roman times and written about by the poet Catullus. The current Scaliger castle fortifications date from the 13^th Century and defend the rest of the peninsula. It tends to be one of the more popular destinations and hence more crowded than some of the other locations described here.

Heller Gardens

A short ferry hop across the lake from Garda brings you to the village of Gardone and the Heller Botanical Gardens. The gardens are split into different zones with plants from around the world with also plenty of running water and ponds. Two things that struck us in particular were the orchids being grown outdoors and also the giant bamboos ( see below with my wife’s hand for scale ).

Orchids grown outdoors

Giant bamboo

Riva del Garda

Right at the northernmost end of the lake is the town of Riva del Garda. It’s a long way up from Garda and a ferry ride takes about 3 hours each way. However it’s a great way to see the more mountainous scenery of the northern end of the lake without having to worry about driving along narrow roads. The ferry goes up to Riva in the morning then waits for a couple of hours before returning. It’s a very relaxing day and one that we thoroughly enjoyed, but take plenty of sunscreen 🙂

The ferry calls at or passes several villages on the way to Riva. This is Limone, tucked between the huge cliffs behind and the lake in front. The curious pillars were originally constructed to help with citrus fruit growing and are typical of many of the locations along the lake

Riva itself was part of Austria until the end of the First World War and the architecture is different from the town towards the southern end of the lake. These days it’s fairly quiet with tourism the main industy.

Ferry in Riva

Looking south

Verona

From Garda it’s a 45 minute bus ride into Verona ( 8€ return when we were there ). It would take 2 or 3 days to visit all of Verona’s attractions but beware that some of them, like Juliet’s balcony, get very crowded.

The Roman amphitheatre was built in about 30 AD and is still largely intact. These days it’s used for all sorts of musical events but mainly opera. If you do go to listen to an opera then take a cushion because those stone steps are pretty uncomfortable even after a few minutes 🙂 The panorama below is stitched from 5 separate images.

The Ponte Pietra also dates from Roman times and was the first bridge built across the Adige river. It was largely destroyed in 1945 but rebuilt about 10 years later. Our hotel owner said that the original remains from the bridge were fished out of the river by the locals and used for their rebuilding projects after the war. Thus when it came to rebuild the bridge itself material had to be sourced from elsewhere. I don’t know whether that’s true but it seems plausible.

Near to the Pont Pietra is Verona Cathedral ( Cattedrale di Verona S.Maria Assunta ) We particularly liked the striped effect of the different colour stone and brick used on one of the outside walls.