A panoramic tour of Lake Garda, Italy

Today I want to invite you to a short panoramic tour around Lake Garda in Northern Italy. Six panoramas will offer lots to see! Don't forget to click on the links beneath each picture to get to the full size views.

To get in the right holiday mood lets start with a view of a hotel pool situated a short distance from Peschiera in the south of the Lake Garda - the mountains you can see in the background are those surrounding the lake:

Hotel pool, near Peschiera, Lake Garda - click here for large version

Now let's get down to Peschiera, a small city on the southern side of Lake Garda, situated at the river Mincio, the only river leaving the Lake Garda - all others flow into it. Pescheira has a nice picturesque Old Town - her a view of it in the evening:

Peschiera in the evening - click here for large version

After this relaxing evening we now get on the Gardesena Orientale, the route on the east side of the Lake Garda. Our first stop is Lazise, a small town with a beautiful promenade - grand for nursing a glass of red wine, maybe from nearby Bardolino - and watching the sunset on the lake at the same time. Also worth a look is the old harbour of Lazise:

Lazise harbour - click here for large version

Traveling further north our next stop is Bardolino. Here we visit a sort of "beach" (there are no sand beaches at Lake Garda, only pebble ones) for a swim in the lake. In fact we're a short distance north of Bardolino:

Bathing near Bardolino - click here for large version

Refreshed? Okay, for a very nice evening meal now let's go a few kilometers further north, to Costermano. There you can find a Ristorante named "Miralago" - and that offers a wonderful view of Lake Garda and the city of Garda (named exactly as the lake):

View of Garda from Costermano - click here for large version

Now for a last stop we go around the northern tip of Lake Garda and follow the Gardesena Occidentale, the wonderful route on the west side of the lake. Here the mountains are higher, and the villages at the lake's shore are fewer and due to the steep mountains don't have much space. Until said Gardesena Occidentale was opened in 1931/32 villages like Limone could be reached from the south and eastern shores of Lake Garda by ships only:

Limone - click here for large version