Trip Report - Riva del Garda
 

This was one of those crazy (one night stops) that we sometimes get involved in.

In my opinion, Riva del Garda is a delight.
Riva feels like a centuries old town. Our drive up the east side of Lake Garda did not lead us to expect anything special (The drive up felt any beach highway in the US. Florida A1A comes to mind).

So when we get to Riva del Garda (Riva), we find a nice trio of old style hotels among the buildings clustered around a nice 'town square' and half of the square has a river inset for small boats to come in.

We stayed in the Best Western Europa. They gave us suite 110 (I think 110) which has one of the only 3 or 4 balconies in the entire hotel. The view from the balcony, across the boat slip and lake, to the town square, with the mountains standing tall above the square was fantastic. The Europa feels entirely updated once you are inside and has a few parking spaces adjacent to the hotel.

Riva (or the old section) is set very close into the steep mountains. These mountains are so steep that sunset comes hours earlier near the mountains (where the town square is). This is a lake and mountain scene that is really beautiful (if you are into that).

If you are into to quiet nights however the partying at the five outdoor restuarants seems to go on until 3:00 or later.

Next the wild drive to Tirano.

Driving from Riva to Tirano

Motorcycling author John Hermann calls the Passo Croce Domini between Bagolino and Breno one of the "special little roads in Italy". We needed to go to Tirano to take the Bernina Express and the route from Bagolino to Breno lines up perfectly with the route from from Riva to Tirano. Also, I have my Touring Club Italiano which shows the majority of the route to be scenic.

According to both Michelin and Mappy this was to be 3 to 3& 1/2 hour trip. Well, it took 5 hours going to 5 & 1/2 hours.
Thankfully, we did arrive about 40 minutes ahead of our train.

Parts of it were a beautiful drive, but the kilometers of two lane traffic and maybe ten feet of pavement wore even me out (my ten year old son decided that we needed to stay only in the valleys from then on).

I would be willing to bet that very few tourist stop in Bagalino, although it might be nice to do that.

As for me, that section of road got a little tiring but we made to our train on time.

Trip report Bernina Express will be posted in Fodor's Switzerland Section.

I will ditto the good thoughts of the town of Riva on Lake Garda, northern tip. (there has been some negative reviews of Lake Garda in general, and to some degree that might be true...) but NOT the northern part of the Lake. Riva is lovely, and has such a gorgeous setting. The Best Western Europa is very nice in all ways,. We were on the third floor with a balcony and gorgeous view of inlet, lake, town, square etc. By looking at the pictures from the front, there are perhaps 9 balconied rooms. The others are nice also , I'm sure.
Driving south on the west side of the lake, the first town is beautiful Limone...VERY hilly, lake views and interesting. Driving north out of Riva is very pretty also,vinyards, mountains, stone architecture, quaint towns etc....over to the main highway and then on up to the lovely Dolomites.

Hmmm ! Riva too ! We have also stayed at the Europa our first trip to Garda but the Hotel Sole the last time. The north end of Garda is fantastic !

Count me in as part of the I ((L)) Riva club! We were only there a half day, but if we'd known how much we'd love it, we would have arranged a night or two there.