Lake Garda Suggestions

[Sharon J]

I need some help for a terrific stay on Lake Garda, which was recommended by Nico for its beauty. After all of our Italian travels, this is a new area for us. Lake Como has always been our go to place, before moving down to Sant'Antonio. We would really like a place with a view of the lake for three nights. I'm really not in a position to do hard walking, especially hills or a lot of steps. I'm not sure if that's possible around this lake. I did see a town Sirmione, which looked promising, but really know nothing about this area. This is for our next October trip.
I really appreciate any advice you can give me. Sharon

 

[Alpinista]

My memory is that the towns around the lake are generally on flat ground with the hills rising from beyond. I was heartbroken to see that the hotel I was going to recommend (Grand Hotel Gardone) was closed for refurbishing -- we had a corner suite with one balcony overlooking the lake and a second overlooking the town).

Sirmione has the new town area and nearby points of interest along with the castle area that extends into the lake. We had our kids with us when we stayed in Garda, so more focused on things to do on the water and GardaLand, but around Sirmione there was an acetaia that we visited along with an excavated Roman home in addition to strolling out to the castle. The drive around the lake was beautiful (you can relive the James Bond opening scene from Quantam of Solace along the way).

 

[BEERMAN]

I need some help for a terrific stay on Lake Garda, which was recommended by Nico for its beauty. After all of our Italian travels, this is a new area for us. Lake Como has always been our go to place, before moving down to Sant'Antonio. We would really like a place with a view of the lake for three nights. I'm really not in a position to do hard walking, especially hills or a lot of steps. I'm not sure if that's possible around this lake. I did see a town Sirmione, which looked promising, but really know nothing about this area. This is for our next October trip.
I really appreciate any advice you can give me. Sharon

We stayed a couple days in Sirmione in 2017 and loved it, it was mid October. We were sorta backpacking on this trip with no real itinerary other than visiting with our daughter twice during the trip. After spending time with her in Tuscany we hopped a train heading north. We had options but read about Sirmione and said sounds cool lets go to the largest lake in Italy! We had no idea what station to hop off at, chose Desenzano, and that turned out to be good, maybe a mile hike straight down hill to the ferry dock, they have taxi's but we wanted to act like 20 somethings ha!.

Fyi, we were lucky to arrive an hour before the last daily ferry to Sirmione, if we had missed that we would have had to take a bus around.

On the train we made a one night reservation at micro Hotel degli Oleander, great location right next to the Scaliger Castle. Our room was average size, but clean, comfortable and very convenient. Queen bed with great windows that opened up wide with a beautiful lake view. There was a large shared balcony on our floor as well, some sort of breakfast was included. After spending a couple hours around town we decided to tack on an extra night here, it's beautiful. especially the shoreline walkway past the thermal baths all the way around the point of the peninsula.

let me find some pics...............

 

[BEERMAN]

Grabbed a few, first pic shows hotel and you can just see how close the castle is. Second is view from our hotel room window. The peninsula and town is very walkable, pretty flat. Touring the castle and the roman ruins will require a few additional steps, the photo with the sister reading was on our way up to the ruins. The shops and restaurants are great here, there's no serious stairs like Bellagio, that I can remember..

 

[Sharon J]

My memory is that the towns around the lake are generally on flat ground with the hills rising from beyond. I was heartbroken to see that the hotel I was going to recommend (Grand Hotel Gardone) was closed for refurbishing -- we had a corner suite with one balcony overlooking the lake and a second overlooking the town).

Sirmione has the new town area and nearby points of interest along with the castle area that extends into the lake. We had our kids with us when we stayed in Garda, so more focused on things to do on the water and GardaLand, but around Sirmione there was an acetaia that we visited along with an excavated Roman home in addition to strolling out to the castle. The drive around the lake was beautiful (you can relive the James Bond opening scene from Quantam of Solace along the way).

Wow, this sounds wonderful.. Thank you so much. My mission has now begun to find just right hotel with a view of the lake.

 

[Sharon J]

Grabbed a few, first pic shows hotel and you can just see how close the castle is. Second is view from our hotel room window. The peninsula and town is very walkable, pretty flat. Touring the castle and the roman ruins will require a few additional steps, the photo with the sister reading was on our way up to the ruins. The shops and restaurants are great here, there's no serious stairs like Bellagio, that I can remember..

Oh my gosh, this sounds wonderful. I will certainly check it our. We really want a room with a view. Thank you so much.

 

[Sharon J]

My memory is that the towns around the lake are generally on flat ground with the hills rising from beyond. I was heartbroken to see that the hotel I was going to recommend (Grand Hotel Gardone) was closed for refurbishing -- we had a corner suite with one balcony overlooking the lake and a second overlooking the town).

Sirmione has the new town area and nearby points of interest along with the castle area that extends into the lake. We had our kids with us when we stayed in Garda, so more focused on things to do on the water and GardaLand, but around Sirmione there was an acetaia that we visited along with an excavated Roman home in addition to strolling out to the castle. The drive around the lake was beautiful (you can relive the James Bond opening scene from Quantam of Solace along the way).

My memory is that the towns around the lake are generally on flat ground with the hills rising from beyond. I was heartbroken to see that the hotel I was going to recommend (Grand Hotel Gardone) was closed for refurbishing -- we had a corner suite with one balcony overlooking the lake and a second overlooking the town).

Sirmione has the new town area and nearby points of interest along with the castle area that extends into the lake. We had our kids with us when we stayed in Garda, so more focused on things to do on the water and GardaLand, but around Sirmione there was an acetaia that we visited along with an excavated Ro

My memory is that the towns around the lake are generally on flat ground with the hills rising from beyond. I was heartbroken to see that the hotel I was going to recommend (Grand Hotel Gardone) was closed for refurbishing -- we had a corner suite with one balcony overlooking the lake and a second overlooking the town).

Sirmione has the new town area and nearby points of interest along with the castle area that extends into the lake. We had our kids with us when we stayed in Garda, so more focused on things to do on the water and GardaLand, but around Sirmione there was an acetaia that we visited along with an excavated Roman home in addition to strolling out to the castle. The drive around the lake was beautiful (you can relive the James Bond opening scene from Quantam of Solace along the way).

Thank you so much. I can't believe in all our years visiting Italy from top to bottom, we missed this wonderful sounding place. We've always stayed in the little town of Varenna on Coma, and feel we needed a new lake to visit. Thanks to all of you for this great information. We are visiting in October, so it sounds like everything will be beautiful.

 

[BEERMAN]

Sharon, Sirmione is small... similar to a Varenna. The main activity is from the Scaliger Castle aka "sinking castle" to the point of the peninsula. We did hike out of town beyond the castle and returned after a mile or 2, kinda suburban if I remember correctly, we did catch the bus to Verona out that way.

We arrived via ferry, the next pics show our approach to Sirmione, lake front facing Desenzano. The Hotel Sirmione in the yellow buildings. There are a couple 5 star complexes to the left of that part of town. I'll add a window pic from our hotel degli Oleander and from our shared balcony, I think they may have had rooms with private balcony, not sure?

 

[vicogirl51]

We have always preferred Garda to Como. Will you have a car as the drive around the lake is beautiful plus easy to access the different towns ?
We stayed at the Hotel Gardenia al Lago on the Lake or should I say over the Lake. It was fabulous . https://www.hotel-gardenia.it
Huge Room with balcony reasonably priced with wonderful terrace restaurant on the lake. Fantastic owners !! Highly recommend .

 

[Sharon J]

Yes, we wil have a car. Hopefully, we will stay three days near the lake, then move on to Sant'Antonio near Montepulciano for a week. We've been staying there for many years.

I am having a very hard time finding accommodations near the lake in Garda. Do they mostly close down for the Month of October?

 

[BEERMAN]

it was 6 years ago, but I remember everything was open in October.

 

[wco81]

I visited the south end of the lake as a day trip from Verona where I stayed, taking buses.

Then I stayed on Limona sun Garda for another trip.

In general, I think the upper lake is more scenic. But the area is hilly, which also means you can get great views.

The place I stayed at was on booking.com I believe. They offered parking which is something you have to search for. Traffic and parking isn't as bad as Como but it's still small towns which attract a lot of people.

I don't think it was too hilly but I did have to hike up and down from the parking to the apartment and then down to the waterfront, which is flat.

It can be a challenge for those of limited mobility.

The place didn't have water views. However there was a rooftop terrace which was nice which had a view of the lake but there were other tall buildings between the place and the lake.

Really to get water views, you'd have to get out of the place you're staying in. There are hotels along the waterfront promenade but I think parking down there will be expensive because they draw a lot of day trippers there.

Monte Baldo is a big attraction on the northeaster side of Lake Garda, cable car up to very stunning mountain with long trails to hike with views of surrounding mountains and the lake below. However the trails aren't perfectly flat. It's not a real strenuous hike but it would be difficult for people who had to use a cane or a walker.