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 | Garda Downtown car rental - Travel Guide |  |
GARDA is a lively, flourishing resort, popular with Italians as well as foreigners, and the evening passeggiata along its tree-lined prom is good fun if you're into people-watching. Not long ago it was a fishing village, although now the narrow windy alleys and cottages of its old centre are studded with souvenir shops and snack bars. Even the fifteenth-century Loggia della Losa , originally a dock for the palace behind, is now a gelateria.
Like Torri, Garda is well placed for beach-bumming days on the Punta San Vigilio, but if you want to do something more energetic, you could follow the pleasant route from the church of Santa Maria Maggiore up to a seventeenth-century hermitage, the Eremo dei Camoldolesi - open for prayer only, but you can visit the shop, which sells produce from their gardens and orchards (daily 10.30am-noon & 3.30-5pm). The monks here were ousted by Napoleon in 1810 but bought the place back later in the century - though they only began to live there again in 1972. Each monk enjoys the luxury of a four-roomed house and garden.
If you want to stay in Garda, the most fairly priced hotels are the Speranza on the central square, Piazzale Roma 2 (tel 045.725.5046; up to L60,000/?30.99), and the more comfortable Giardinetto on Via V. Bellini 1 (tel 045.725.5051, fax 045.627.8302; L120,000-150,000/?61.98-77.47) where the rooms all have lake views and there is a good restaurant downstairs (closed Tues). The tourist office is in the centre of town on the inland side of the main road, at Via Don Gnocchi 23 (April-Sept Mon-Sat 9am-7pm, Sun 9am-1pm; Oct-March Mon-Sat 9am-1pm & 3-6pm; tel 045.627.0384), and it has daily information on which hotels have rooms available. Alternatively there are houses with rooms to rent ; if you want to fix up somewhere like this directly, try Mauro Consolino, Via Monte Baldo 13 and Via Antiche Mura 4 (tel 045.725.6113 and 045.725.5561), or Giorgio Ferri, Via delle Viole (tel 045.725.5409). There are two campsites : the three-star Serenella (tel 045.721.1333), halfway between Garda and Bardolino on the main road; and two-star La Rocca (tel 045.721.1111), slightly nearer and on the same road a five-minute walk from town (in the Verona direction), next to the main road - though there are plenty of lakeside spots.
The best places to eat in Garda are outside the centre: Al Ponte Sel , Via Monte Baldo 75 (closed Mon), does a good set menu which includes wine; and Rasole , Via San Bernardo 95 (closed Tues), does decently priced home-made pasta, though it's a good thirty-minute walk from town. Slightly more expensive, La Val , on Via Val Molini (no closing day), the first left-turn along the road to Costermano, is known for its grilled trout. In town, Taverna Fregosa , at Corso Vittorio Emanuele 37 (no closing day), does a delicious half roast chicken. Garda is fairly animated at night : head either for the Taverna on the lakefront just off Piazza Catullo, Bar Taitu on Vicolo Cieco Forni off Corso Vittorio Emanuele (the old town's main street), or to an ersatz Greek cocktail bar, perplexingly titled Taverna Goethe , Via delle Viole, off Via San Bernardo.
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