Best of Lake Garda
Why visit Lake Garda, and how does it stack up as a destination, compared to Como?
This gorgeous lake in northern Italy is just a short bus ride away from Verona, or an hour or so train ride from Milan. It's the largest lake in Italy and is an absolutely beautiful part of the world. One of the first thing I noticed when we got there, is there are far less English-speaking tourists and it's more of a German holiday hotspot.
Why visit Lake Garda
How long should I stay?
I believe 3-4 days should be enough to give you a proper taste of Lake Garda, but you're still only going to scratch the surface of what's here. A day trip is doable, if you just want to visit one or two towns, but you'd feel very rushed if you did.
Where should I stay?
You can't go wrong if you use Sirmione as a base. It's a stunning location at the south of the lake, that goes up into a point or peninsula. At the very tip of the peninsula is the fortressed old town, with a castle and moat at its entrance. It's a pretty incredible sight walking up to it for the first time.
We stayed just outside of the old town (about halfway up the peninsula) but still in walking distance. It wasn't a bad option, but if I did it again, I'd make a point of trying to wake up in that old town. It's pretty spectacular and the L26 buses stop just outside of the castle, so it's easy if you've got luggage.
Getting Around - don't make the same mistakes I did
I ditched our car by this part of the trip, because I thought it would be easier to take the ferry to get around. The truth is, it probably would have been better if we'd kept the car an extra couple of days, because I'd under estimated just how big the lake would be. There were a couple of towns at the north of the lake that we simply had to miss out on, because the off-season ferry schedule wasn't prevalent enough. We weren't going to have any time to actually explore, before having to get back on the ferry and come home.
I've attached the official website with the PDF schedules. Don't just do what I did and think that there would be enough ferries to get you to where you want to go. It's good to double check. I was there in shoulder season (October) and if I wanted to go from Sirmione to somewhere like Limone Sul Garda, it was going to take around 3 or 4 hours on the ferry. It was doable, but it was a pricey ticket for a lot of travel and not a lot of time to explore the town.
If I'd kept the car, it would have only taken us less than 2 hours to get to Limone Sul Garda and we could have dropped into Malcesine and Riva Del Garda on the way. Parking options just outside of Sirmione's old town were prevalent and our Airbnb even had a park available for us to use - but I guess that's the benefit of hindsight and a good part of the reason why I'm writing this blog.
Ferries
So now you know that having a car would have been beneficial, I want to point out the ferries on the lake are also very great options for tripping around towns that are close by. We were there in the shoulder season, so the amount of ferry options (including fast ferries that would have made getting to the northern part of the lake easier) dropped off, but we still got around to four or five towns in the space of a couple of days.
One of my favourite days was when we bought a 'centre of the lake' ticket, and we just hopped on and off at the different towns, like Garda, Bardolino and Lazize, after stopping to have aperitivo in each place.
Ferry Timetables
The fast ferries were few and far between during October when we were there. They were still available on weekends, but they also cost a good chunk more. The timetables can be found online (just make sure the timetable matches up with the time of year you're going). They're also at each of the ferry terminals. So we just made sure that when we were dropped off at say Garda, we planned what boat we wanted to return on, so we didn't get stranded or miss the last one. If you're not 100 per cent sure, just ask the ticket booth, before jumping on board.
Sirmione - What To Do
Boat Ride Around Sirmione
There were plenty of options to take a half an hour boat ride around Sirmione, that didn't break the bank and only cost 10 Euros. We decided against it, simply because we had already trekked around most of the peninsula. But it would have been a nice way to see Sirmione from a different perspective.
Thermal Baths in Sirmione
Sirmione is one of the places in the south of Lake Garda that's known for its precious thermal waters. Everywhere you look, there are hotels, resorts, treatment and wellness centres offering treatments. The best known spa is Terme di Sirmione, which is towards the end of the old town and has its own pools overlooking the lake. We chose to do a half hour massage and 3 hour pool entry package, which set us back around 130 Euros for two. We spent the morning just relaxing and exploring the different spa options, which proved to be a nice chance to unwind.
Bike Ride to Other Towns
This isn't something for the faint hearted - especially for us Aussies who 1. drive on the left side of the road and 2. aren't used to the unhinged way Italians drive. But our Airbnb came with two bikes that we could use as we liked, so, as my plan to get to the northern side of the lake had already been dashed (see above in the 'Getting Around' blurb), we decided to ride to Peschiera Sul Garda instead.
There's bike paths some of the way there, but a lot of the time we found ourselves just riding along with the traffic. I can't say it was an overly picturesque ride, but at least it's not too strenuous. It took us about an hour to get into town (when Google maps predicted 30 minutes). But then we were just able to park up and explore and have coffee and breakfast. If your timings work out better than ours, some of the ferries allow bicycles on board and you can take your bikes with you back on the boat. We trekked it back - but rewarded ourselves with gelato as a result.
Aperitivo on the Lake
There were a couple of beautiful aperativo spots that we found while we were in Sirmione that I thought I'd share. The first is Barracuda, which is just out of the told town. It was a beautiful spot to park up and watch the sun go down. It's got three different options, including inside, the garden bar and the outdoor deck over the water. We parked up there for a couple of hours and watched the sun go down and it was magical.
Bar La Torre was also a beautiful spot which overlooks Spiaggia Del Prete. It was a cute place to sit and watch the beach goers.
Kiss Me Spot
Just above Bar La Torre, there's a little sign that says 'Kiss Me', so we got the obligatory photo at the spot. There was a cute older couple who went ahead of us, but the guy kept moving or mucking up the photo. I'd say, it was a ploy to get to kiss his sweetheart again and again in front of the crowd.
