Peschiera del Garda to Lazise

Something that I’ve learned while traveling alone, is that I travel much differently by myself than I do with other people. When I travel by myself I know exactly what I need to do, how fast I can do it, and how I will feel if things don’t go to plan. I also know how to fix problems – I’m flexible, I only plan what is important to me, and I often let the wind take me.

During my last trip to Lago Di Garda with my girlfriend and her parents – truth be told we got lucky, and if it wasn’t for my experience as a traveller, mixed with a stroke of luck -what ended up being a pleasant day could have been a lot less…eventful.

Being the last-minute traveller that I am, I booked this trip for us last minute. We wanted to explore some place outside of Florence for the day, and knowing me I dove in head first to try to find something special for us to do. Going down the list of places outside of Florence the usual places for me came to mind such as Lucca, Siena, and Bologna – but it was really hot and I wanted to get us somewhere to hopefully cool off as well.

When I came across Lago di Garda I realized that it was going to be quite the trek to get there, being at the outer limits of what would be realistic for a day trip in my mind – especially considering that it wouldn’t be just me that was travelling, but I brought the suggestion up to the group and everyone agreed. So the night before I purchased the tickets that had us leaving Florence Santa Maria Novella at 8:36 am. We’d then change trains in Verona, and arrive in Peschiera del Garda at 10:45am.

On the day of our trip everything went according to plan – or rather, lack-there-of besides purchasing the tickets. On the train there I knew I had around two hours to do some additional research. I knew I wanted to go to Lazise first, and then spend the remainder of the afternoon in Peschiera del Garda before our train was due to return at 18:16. So I looked up lunch restaurants in Lazise that I could potentially call for a reservation and starred them on Google maps, then did the same thing for places in Peschiera del Garda in case we wanted to get an early aperitivo before grabbing our train back.

Where we got lucky is that the trip to Lazise almost didn’t happen at all due to the ferry times available that day. I had figured that there would be ferries going to Lazise approximately every hour or half hour, but what I didn’t realize was that the same wasn’t true for ferries returning to Peschiera del Garda.

When we arrived to the dock where there was a ferry already parked, we encountered quite a long line of people, and the ferry time table was honestly a bit confusing to understand. It was possible to purchase tickets going to Lazise on my phone, but the part that wasn’t clear was the time and duration of the return trip – which was important to know so I wouldn’t risk us missing our train. There was also the issue of no ferries returning late enough to make the trip worth while. While I approached the front of the line my girlfriend and her Mom waited near the ferry that appeared was about to leave, just in case we needed to run to catch it- and her Dad and I went inside to try to get tickets. In the end I went inside and spoke with the individual selling the tickets, and after confirming the time the ferry would arrive back in Peschiera del Garda we quickly purchased the tickets and ran to get on the ferry before the gate closed.

If we would have arrived 5 minutes later, we would have completely lost the opportunity to visit Lazise for the day – which would have been completely fine considering where we were, but it would have been a pretty big disruption to our (my) plans. The issue in this case wasn’t knowing the length of the journey of the ferry, as this wasn’t published. Sometimes you have fast ferries, and slow ferries that can cause the transit time to vary greatly. In this case our only option to visit Lazise for the day was to leave right then at around 11:15am so that we could be in Lazise for a few hours, have lunch, and then return back after lunch to spend the rest of our day in Peschiera del Garda.

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Seeing that luck was on our side, we certainly were excited to see this lovely city for the afternoon, so we boarded the ferry and basked in the air of the lake, which was still hot – but not Florence hot. It might not have seemed like it to anyone else, but this was actually my first time visiting Lake Garda. I had driven next to it up into the mountains to visit other sites nearby, but this was my first time visiting the lake itself and I was pretty excited about it.

Being out on the deck of the ferry during the trip from Peschiera del Garda to Lazise reminded me of home – . being near water for me just makes me happy in general, and this was certainly no exception 🙂

While checking out the scenery I found that Gardaland was actually really nearby and we passed right in front of it. This is basically the Disneyland – or rather Six Flags of Italy. Just one of those places that you see and didn’t even remember it was there so it catches you by surprise. I would definitely like to check it out sometime! It’s probably been over 10 years since I’ve been on a rollercoaster ride, but I digress!

As we approached Lazise I could tell right away that the town was going to be a real pleasure to explore. Approaching Lazise from the water the Castello Scaligero di Lazise is impossible to miss as it comes right to the edge of the water.

Castello Scaligero di Lazise is a medieval castle located in the town of Lazise on the eastern bank of Lake Garda in northern Italy. The Scaliger family constructed the fortress as a part of their defense system to safeguard their lands near Lake Garda in the fourteenth century.

The castle is surrounded by a moat, which is square in design and contains four corner towers. A drawbridge leading into the interior courtyard serves as the castle’s principal entrance. It was challenging for invaders to breach the castle walls since they were built of stone and brick and were several meters thick. The castle has undergone numerous alterations and renovations throughout the years, and as a result, it is now a well-preserved illustration of medieval military architecture.

The town has a charming old town center with narrow streets, quaint shops, and restaurants. We spent a few hours wandering about and trying to get lost while taking photos aplenty along the way. The town’s main square, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II was pretty unique, and caught me off guard to be honest. I certainly wasn’t expecting to see such a large square in such a relatively small place so we made sure to pass through it a few times. Getting restaurant reservations has become quite difficult since the pandemic started, but fortunately I found a great place called ‘La Forgia’, which was honestly exactly what we needed and were looking for. Most of us had some exceptional seafood dishes, with a view of the lake to boot.