M
ountain or lake? It’s a northern
Italian dilemma. It’s also
something of a personality marker.
In Lombardy, Italy’s richest region,
the weekend getaway is as often a
casa di montagna as a casa al lago.
So you’re either a skier or a swimmer, a high-pasture,
wild-boar hunting, après-ski-in-furs type, or more of
the lakeside passeggiata-and-aperitivo persuasion.
About an hour’s drive east of Milan is Brescia,
Lombardy’s second-largest city and a centre of industry
and agriculture. Like his Milanese cousins, my
Brescia-born husband, Giuliano, has seen his share of
mountains and lakes. Between the craggy alpine peaks
to the north and the hazy stretches of the fertile Po
river valley to the south, the Lombards have spectacular
lakes to play by. The big lakes include Maggiore and
Lugano, Orta and Iseo, and Como, of course,
plus the less celebrated Garda – Italy’s largest.
About halfway between Milan and Venice,
Lake Garda tapers 50 kilometres northwards from
its wider base, fringed by picture-book castles and the
odd Roman ruin. It may not have Como’s celebrity
glamour, but it has plenty going on.
“Lake Garda is like a huge, lush garden,” says
restaurateur Giancarlo Camanini who, with his chef
brother Riccardo, runs Lido 84, a starred eatery
on the lake’s western shores. “Wherever you look,
you see beauty. I think that’s why everyone who
comes here, even just for a holiday, is dazzled by this
place and ends up falling in love with it, as we did.”
Our own infatuation with Garda developed eight
years ago on a regular family visit. The western side of
the lake is part of Brescia province. Brescian friends
had lent us their place outside the sailing village of
Bogliaco, comprising a handful of ochre buildings
perched over pale, pebbled shallows, halfway along
the western shore. As the waters deepen, the stiff
grey curtains of the Dolomites rise from the opposite
bank. The mountains are never far away.
At the faintly boho Bar Osteria al Porto in the
neighbouring hamlet of Villa, by a pocket-sized marina,
we drank the fresh local white, Lugana, and glasses
of Pirlo, Brescia’s punchier version of the Spritz, made
with white wine, Campari and a splash of soda. A few
steps down a jetty or a hop across the pebbles, and
we’d slip into the ripples for a dip. Dry off on the
warm concrete, maybe another Pirlo, and repeat.
On other days, we’d thread our way skywards
through perilously narrow road tunnels – the
surrounding mountainsides are punctured by these
daunting gallerie. We’d visit the meadows of the High
Garda Park and stop at the Alpe del Garda cheese
factory to buy formagella di Tremosine, gently bitey
local soft paste cheese, and fresh morning milk from
the help-yourself dispenser, one euro a bottle. Then,80 GOURMET TRAVELLER