Brenzone sul Garda

Brenzone sul Garda is not a single village: it is a string of sixteen hamlets scattered along the shore, from Castelletto to Assenza, from Magugnano to Porto. Each has its own little harbour, its small square, its church. In between, a lakeside promenade at the water's edge holds them all together.

Behind rises Monte Baldo, the “botanical garden of Europe”: in a few hundred metres you pass from olive trees to chestnuts, from chestnuts to pastures. In front, the deepest point of Lake Garda — over 340 metres — which keeps the water clear and cold even in August.

The real discovery, however, lies higher up: Campo di Brenzone, a medieval rural hamlet that has remained intact, reachable only on foot in about twenty minutes from the shore. Stone houses, paved lanes, the little church of San Pietro in Vincoli with fourteenth-century frescoes. Almost no one lives here any longer: it is a piece of the fifteenth century suspended above the lake.