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Today we set out from our hotel in Salo to Malcesine. If you look at a map of Lake Garda, Malcesine is on the east side of the lake. So we decided to take the ferry across with our car from the lovely town of Limone (described in another post).
En route to Limone, we stopped in Gardone Riviera to visit the house and gardens “Il Vittoriale degli Italiani”. This place is the creation of the famous Italian poet and WW1 soldier Gabrielle D’Annunzio. He had strong links to the Government and to Mussolini and was given this place as a gift “Il Vittoriale degli Italiani”where he resided until his death. The place is amazing, intriguing and a little crazy, as was D'Anunnzio. Below is a link nicely describing who D'Annunzio was, which great to read prior to visiting this site.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-sex-obsessed-poet-who-invented-fascism
The gardens are a must to walk around… you will find an actual war boat raised on one hill, art installations, amphitheater and magnificent views of the lake. Really stunning! It is also worth doing the half hour tour of the house to get a better understanding of this crazy, brilliant and very famous Italian icon. We spent two hours at this site but you could easily spend more time here.
We then drove to Limone and took the ferry across the lake to Malcesine. Our first stop was the cable car up to Mount Baldo. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day and so the magnificent views of the lake and distant Alps mountains were not as good as we had hoped. Mount Baldo is a magnet for paragliders and we were quite fascinated watching them set up their parachutes, jump and glide through the skies. After watching them, we set out on our planned walk on Mount Baldo but after about 15 minutes it started to rain quite heavily. We ran back to the cable car area and found shelter at a great café / restaurant and waited there for the rain to stop.
When the rained finally stopped, we took the cable car down and wandered around the picture-perfect village of Malcesine. Malcesine is a touristy medieval village with a great castle to visit, full of narrow cobbled lanes, crammed between the lake and the massive mountains behind. In my opinion, it is the prettiest village on Garda. It is worth visiting the castle and climbing to the top to see the beautiful views of the lake and Malcesine. You can also enjoy the abundance of lovely boutique shops, cafes and restaurants!
From Malcesine, we started our drive back to Salo (about a two hour drive). We stopped en route to visit the lovely town, Lasize. By chance, we stumbled upon their annual honey festival. It was buzzing with activity and interesting. We then walked around this pretty village.
It was starting to get dark so we continued our drive back to Salo on the highway without stopping. It was an eventful and lovely day.
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