Lake Garda Holidays and Escorted Tours
Garda is the largest of the Italian lakes and the most varied. The northern end is a fjord, hemmed in by the cliffs of Monte Baldo, with the wind funnelling down the water most afternoons. Thirty miles south it opens out into the Lombardy plain, warm enough for lemons, olives and the vineyards behind Bardolino.
Our Italian Lakes holidays fly out from the UK, settle into one hotel and travel out by coach each day with an English-speaking guide, so nobody has to tackle the lakeside roads or the tunnels. Verona, Sirmione and the wine country are all within easy reach of the shore.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Lake Garda Tours
Our current Lake Garda holidays travel by air rather than by coach from the UK — return flights and transfers are included, and a coach with a guide takes you out on excursions once you are there. That keeps the two long travelling days short. If your club or society specifically wants a coach journey out through France and Switzerland, ask us and we will look at it as a private group.
Enough to matter. Verona is walked rather than driven, Sirmione's old town is closed to traffic, and lakeside villages like Limone and Malcesine are built on slopes with steps and cobbles. Nothing is strenuous, but you should be comfortable on your feet for an hour or two at a time. Tell us about any mobility concerns before booking and we will talk you through the specific itinerary honestly.
Breakfast and evening meals are included on our Italian Lakes holidays, and evening meals are usually taken at the hotel. Lunches are generally your own affair, which suits most people — a lakeside café or a market bakery is part of the pleasure. Where an itinerary includes a tasting with snacks, or a lunch as part of a winery visit, that is listed in the tour's inclusions.
Yes. Open Group departures are made up of individual travellers joining a scheduled tour, and solo travellers are common on this style of holiday. Prices are quoted per person sharing a twin or double room, so a single supplement applies if you would like a room to yourself. Ask us what the supplement is on the departure you are considering, as it varies between hotels.
Some do. Alongside Garda itself, our Italian Lakes programme includes departures built around Maggiore, Como and Orta — the Borromean Islands and Isola Bella, a boat across to Bellagio, Orta San Giulio, and the Bernina Express railway climbing from Tirano up to St Moritz. Each tour page lists exactly which lakes and excursions are included, so check the itinerary before you book.
There is time of your own. The pattern is one main guided excursion a day, with the afternoon or early evening left free to walk the promenade, take a lake ferry or sit with a coffee. Nobody is obliged to join every visit. If you would rather stay at the hotel for a day, that is entirely fine — just let the tour escort know.
The lake from Torbole to Sirmione
Garda changes character as you travel down it. At the top, Torbole and Riva del Garda sit under near-vertical rock, and the two daily winds — the northerly Peler in the morning, the southerly Ora after lunch — have made this one of the best-known sailing corners in Europe. A cable car climbs from Malcesine to the ridge of Monte Baldo, where on a clear day you can see the whole length of the water.
Halfway down the western shore, Gardone Riviera and Salò were built as belle époque resorts and still feel like it, with palm-lined promenades and villas set back behind gates. Limone sul Garda keeps the stone pillars of its old lemon houses on the terraces above the village.
The southern end is gentler: Bardolino and Lazise among the vines, and Sirmione on its long thin peninsula, with a moated Scaliger castle at the entrance and the ruins the Romans left at Catullus's villa at the far tip.
Verona and the Valpolicella vineyards
Verona is around half an hour from the southern shore and repays a full day. The Roman arena in Piazza Bra is the third largest surviving amphitheatre in Italy and still holds opera in summer; the market square, Piazza delle Erbe, follows the outline of the old Roman forum. The Scaligeri family who fortified the lake left their tombs and their bridge here too.
The hills between the city and the lake are serious wine country. Bardolino and Lugana are the local everyday wines, the latter grown on the clay flats near Sirmione. North of Verona, in Valpolicella, the grapes for Amarone are dried on racks for months before pressing, which is what gives the wine its weight.
Our culture and wine holidays build in tastings, some with snacks or lunch, so you meet the wines where they are made rather than in a hotel function room.
Gardens, lemon houses and olive groves
Garda's climate is the reason gardeners come. The lake holds enough warmth to grow citrus and olives well north of where you would expect them, and the olive oil from the Sirmione and Garda hills is among the most northerly in the world.
Several of the great garden set pieces sit on the western shore. Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio's extraordinary hillside estate above Gardone Riviera, includes an amphitheatre and a warship embedded in the terraces. Close by, the Hruska botanical garden packs alpine and subtropical planting into a small ravine. Isola del Garda, reached by boat, has formal Italianate terraces below a neo-Gothic villa.
Spring is the season for it. Camellias, azaleas and citrus blossom come out across the lakes in April and May, and our gardens departures follow that flowering, sometimes as far west as Maggiore and Orta.
How our Italian Lakes holidays work
These are air holidays. Return flights and UK transfers are arranged for you, the airport transfer at the Italian end is included, and you stay in one hotel for the whole trip rather than repacking every other night. Breakfast and evening meals are included, entrance fees for the listed visits are paid, and a coach with an English-speaking guide or tour escort handles the excursions.
Days tend to run to one main outing with time to sit and look at things afterwards — a lake ferry, an hour in a piazza, a tasting that is not rushed. Prices are quoted per person sharing a twin or double room, and a single supplement applies for sole occupancy.
Clubs, U3A branches, garden societies and groups of friends can take a whole departure as a private group, with the itinerary adjusted to suit. Ask us and we will quote it.
