Salò’s apartments are smaller, pricier and often
cunningly designed. We inspect one, snappy with
striped walls and glazed ceilings, in a converted factory
near the Gothic cathedral and its handkerchief-sized
square. The prospect of living just minutes from
the Casa del Dolce artisan gelateria is tempting; its
pomegranate and prickly-pear flavour has just the
right balance of fruit and texture. The most popular
on a warm afternoon is uva fragola, made from sweet
fragolino, the strawberry grape.
Set in a former granary on a narrow paved street,
Osteria di Mezzo becomes our Salò eatery of choice,
a small contemporary-meets-classic dining room where
bookings are required days out. Owner Mauro Vanni
knows his wines, his lake fish and his extra-virgin, cold-
pressed Garda olive oil. The rabbit dish (his uncle’s
recipe, he says) is a revelation, buttery and juicy with
tomatoes, almost like osso buco. A wooden board
of local cheeses and mustard fruits is a perfect
“expression of territorio”, as they say around here.
Whether it’s a budget antipasti buffet lunch along
the boardwalk at Ristorante Canottieri, at the Salò
sailing club, or prosciutto, panini, local salami and
a glass of Franciacorta on a stool at the tiny Banco
Salumi on the main piazza, we could get very used
to life by the lake in gorgeous Salò.
And yet we find ourselves drawn back to the
sleepy waterside hamlets of Bogliaco and Villa.
They’re part of the Gargnano municipality, a pretty
town serving the central lake area and a number
of villages along the often vertiginous donkey-track
roads spiralling up to the High Garda. Trekking and
mountain biking is quite the thing here. Even the
quietest and least ambitious hike can occasionally
be interrupted by a pack of panting enthusiasts with
race numbers plastered on their chests.
We decide our favourite bar is the slightly down-
at-heel Osteria al Porto on the marina at Villa,
the one we fell in love with all those years ago. Just
a few hundred metres away is the Bignotti deli, one
of the lake’s best local food showcases. It’s stuffed
with cheeses, salumi, oils, fresh pasta and antipasti
to go, with a butchery section as well.
When Mussolini holed up on Lake Garda in the
1940s, he chose to requisition a grand 1890s villa, built
in the ornate Italian Liberty style, over the water at
Gargnano. Along the squeeziest of lake-edge lanes, the
building lives on as the Grand Hotel a Villa Feltrinelli,
with a two-starred restaurant and kitchen garden.
We, on the other hand, find a modest two-bedroom
attic apartment in the area, just 70 metres from the
shore. From a little loft beneath exposed beams, we
can peer over brick-red rooftops to the ever-changing
vista of the lake, framed by the imposing peak of Monte
Baldo. With the title deeds safely signed, we have our
own little piece of lake, and mountain, to play in.●Clockwise: Osteria al Porto
in Villa; cheeses at Bignotti
in Gargnano; the grounds
at Vittoriale degli Italiani in
Gardone Riviera; siblings
Giuseppe and Maria Perolini
of Panetteria Perolini in
Toscolano-Maderno.
.86 GOURMET TRAVELLER