About two and a half hours’ drive north of Bologna and just on the edge of the Dolomites sits Garda, Italy’s largest lake. Like Lake Como (but without the heart-stopping prices), Lake Garda’s shores are dotted with pretty towns and villages. Even for the ancient Romans this area was a popular summer holiday destination, and the lake’s spectacular natural beauty and charming little towns continue to draw big crowds.

52 kilometres long and shaped a bit like an elongated teardrop, Lake Garda’s clear blue waters lap its shores in three regions – Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino Alto-Adige. The landscape along the narrow part of the lake is dramatic with towering mountains and sheer cliffs, but in the south it’s all rolling hills covered with olive groves and vineyards. And it was here, in the little village of Portese on the south-western shore, that we based ourselves for a couple of days.

Portese is the port for the town of San Felice del Benaco, about a 15 minute walk to the west. One of Garda’s prettiest villages, and much smaller than many of the other towns, Portese itself is set on a hill above the lake. There’s a church, a little shop, a couple of restaurants and not much more. If you want a grocery store or a pharmacy or even an ATM, you have to go in to San Felice.

Portese’s narrow cobbled streets and stone archways open onto a tiny square. On one side there’s a bar where locals gather for an aperitivo in the early evening (a delightful custom we felt obligated to uphold) and opposite around a corner is the restaurant of a local fisherman and his wife. With just four tables, they open only if someone wants to eat.

When we arrived on the appointed evening, the family was just finishing dinner at one of the tables. We were the only other diners. The father explained what they planned to cook for us and we settled in for a fabulous evening and a wonderful dinner of fish taken from the lake that afternoon. First came an appetiser of flash-fried alborelle (about the size of whitebait…delicious), then we tucked in to a seafood pasta while our secondo, whole coregone stuffed with rosemary, cooked over the hot coals of the open fire behind us.

The food was simple – enhanced only by a generous squeeze of lemon juice on the fish and a good slug of local olive oil on the green salad – and absolutely delicious. With half a litre of local white wine and a strong coffee to finish it was a spectacular, and truly memorable, dinner. Four generations of men in the family have made their livelihoods from Lake Garda and the couple’s pride in that fact, and their pleasure at seeing us enjoy what they produced, was obvious.

The next morning we wandered down the hill to wait for the local ferry that is the main mode of transport around the lake. It’s a slow and very pleasant way to travel and we spent a lovely day hopping from town to town – along with thousands of other tourists – enjoying the beauty and charm of Lago di Garda.

 

Lake Garda - Portese
Lake Garda - Delicious Dinner
Lake Garda