Lake Garda recommendations????
 

HI All,

After a whirlwind tour of the romantic road, and Germany we will settle into Lake Garda Sept 1-3 for a little activity (watersports, hiking, kids stuff, biking, as well as shopping).

We would also like to be near good food, and whatever great sights there are to see in Lake Garda. The ideal place would also have some onsite amenities like a pool, sauna, etc. We would like to stay at or below 200 Euro. Traveling in our party we will have 2 couples and a child. We will need 2 separate rooms or a larger suite.

Where do you recommend we stay? There are so many places, and with the different areas of the lake its REALLY confusing.

Also, we are thinking about spending a day after leaving Lake Garda to explore Cortina / Dolomites before heading back to Salzburg to spend some time at our friend's place. Is it worth it, or just spend another day in Garda?

hi redneck,

a few years ago we stayed at the Hotel Garda on Lake Garda with our kids. a nice pool, good [hotel] food, and interconnecting rooms for us and the kids. it was within your price bracket at the time.

it's a few minutes walk from the lake, and was very child-freindly. Garda is well situated for the boats and buses, and most of what you are after was easily available nearby.

this was about 7 or so years ago, so you might want to check up on it though TA or similar. I'm sure that there are loads of others, but as you say, it's very confusing because of all of the choice.

Hi,

I checked Hotel Garda.... There isn't any availability :-(

Gardaland -
www.gardaland.it/.../promozioni/

Garda Land is the third mos popular theme park in Europe - perhaps park the kiddos there and they have a ball and adults do something more adult enjoyable

Gardaland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardaland - CachedSimilar
Gardaland is the third-most-popular theme park in Europe and is between Peschiera and Lazise, at Lake Garda in Italy. Built on the eastern shore of Lake ...

www.sirmione.com My Fav the pearl of the Lake

Anything that looks good to you there

Hotel Eden my fav historic Orwell Pound and Freud stayed there

Lake view room and awesome breakfast 120 euro there for me

April 2010 last I was there...

Desanzano di Gard is nice Hotel Vitorio 100 euro more moderate

Gardone is beautiful over by Salo some amazing hotels

you can even stay in the home of Mussolini's mistress

there thought it was great....

www.booking.com honest reviews from recent guests beware

owner culled fake all positive reviews on Tripadvertizer

Happy Hunting...

booking.com/Villa-Fiordaliso

a tad of a snoot factor though...

We liked the northern end of the lake at/near Malcesine. We stayed at the du Lac about 1/2 mile from the center of town, but I don't recall what rate we paid. Another hotel we saw while there that looked great was the Castello, but it doesn't have a pool.

Take the cablecar from Malcesine to the top of Monte Baldo.

http://www.funiviedelbaldo.it/index.php?lang=en

Redneck, I forget where we stayed (10 years ago) but I thought Lake Garda was beautiful. I particularly liked our stop at the town of Salo, great views, upscale shops etc.

Hi Redneck - Like Jean I prefer the northern end of the lake with its scenic mountain backdrop - especially around Riva.

For a day in the Dolomites I'd recommend the Val Gardena/ Gardena Pass/Alta Badia route. You have a choice of ace cable-car rides on this drive for spectacular mountain views.

Hope this helps ...

Steve

Try the Hotel Olivi in Sirmione, it's got a pool and is within the walled part of the town. We stayed there two years ago and really enjoyed it.

Agree w/Jean and Steve. We recently stayed at Malchesine and loved it. Cable car, the castle, nice lake area and trip over to Limonne were the highlights.

Personally, I prefer being towards the middle of the lake [the sides thereof, obviously!] this is because it is then much easier to get to either end, whereas if you are staying in Sirmone, it takes all day to get to the northern end, and vv. But Malcesine was lovely and you have the cable car as well, so that would be a good choice, IMO.

For some reason the last post I put out didn't post. Sorry...

Thanks for all of the good information! Unfortunately, just about all of the places that were recommended here (and several that weren't [based on locales mentioned here] were booked up! Not surprising. Everybody here has good taste ;-)

We decided to hang our hat in this place in Torbole. http://www.hotellagodigarda.it/it/
I realize from reviews that I won't care for the breakfast, and there really isn't a lot to do at the place itself. Sounds like a decent, clean place with nice views of the lake (if nothing else).

Which brings me to my next question ... Where are places that I HAVE to eat, or things I HAVE to do that are feasible to do from this location without a ton of travel?

You will like Torbole---the wind surfing capital of Europe.
Take your camera.

well, if you don't like the breakfasts, hotel website says that the gelateria opens at 7am so you should be ok one way or another!

my recommendation of a "must do" would be to get the boat to Malcesine and take the cable car to the top of the mountain- a different world. The tagliatelli with rabbit sauce in the mountain restaurant was great. the boat trip shouldn't be too long as Malcesine is towards the northern end of the eastern shore of the lake.

if you have a car, from Torbole you will have easy access to the Dolomites too, but with only a couple of nights, you may not want to worry about that.