Lake Garda has had a perennial attraction for travelers and writers alike; even the essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–92), whose 15 months of travel journals contain not a single other reference to nature, paused to admire the view down the lake from Torbole, which he called "boundless."
Lake Garda is 50 km (31 miles) long, ranges roughly 1–16 km (½–10 miles) wide, and is as much as 1,135 feet deep. The terrain is flat at the lake's southern base and mountainous at its northern tip. As a consequence, its character varies from stormy inland sea to crystalline Nordic-style fjord. It's the biggest lake in the region and by most accounts the cleanest. If you're driving, take care on the hazardous hairpin turns on the lake road.
