We said it in the morning, somewhere between the station and the Gardaland shuttle stop, walking along the edge of a fortress moat that turned out to be the colour of a swimming pool: pretty town, will stop for a drink later.
Strava recorded it. It’s right there in the title of the first activity. We meant it at the time and then the theme park happened and we forgot, and then we came back in the evening and it was still there, still pretty, and we remembered.
The morning.
We’d taken the train from Sirmione — the nearest station to Gardaland turns out to be in the middle of nowhere — and the park doesn’t open until ten, so there was an hour to fill. We were not expecting what we found.
The bridge into the old town. That water is not filtered. It just looks like that.
Peschiera is a UNESCO World Heritage fortress town, though we didn’t know that at the time. What we knew was that the water in the moat was an impossible shade of turquoise — the kind that makes you look twice and reach for your phone — and that the bridge into the old town had flower boxes along both sides and cypress trees beyond, and that the whole thing felt completely unplanned and completely right.
Where the fortress meets Lake Garda. The Venetians built this in the 16th century. It holds up well.
The fortress walls meet the lake at a bastion that sits right at the water’s edge — old brick, a small shrine built into the stonework, the lake stretching out behind it into the mountains. We stood there for a while. The shuttle bus could wait.
Lake Garda opening up. The mountains were still there in the afternoon.
Down by the canal, a boy was fishing with a net — crouched over the water with the serious concentration of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing, a younger child watching from a safe distance, a father standing behind them both. The water was clear enough to see the fish. There were a lot of fish. He was successful. We watched for longer than we meant to.
He caught one. We watched the whole thing.
Then the STS Fun Train trundled past — a yellow road-going tourist locomotive, cheerful and slightly absurd — and reminded us we had a theme park to get to.
Not the Gardaland shuttle. Close though.
The evening.
We came back as the light was going soft. The morning had been blue and bright; the evening was cooler, the sky lower, the town entirely different. The kind of different that a place does when the day-trippers have gone and the people who actually live there come out.
The waterfront at dusk. This is where Peschiera keeps its best side.
We found a table outside a bar along the waterfront — the kind of place that brings cocktails with small plates of fried things you didn’t order and don’t question, with a red rose in a glass on the table and a lamp that comes on at exactly the right moment. The lake was out there somewhere behind the buildings. The fishing spot was quiet now.
We did stop for a drink. We had several.
A slower wander today in Peschiera del Garda. Exactly right in the middle of a 10 day adventure.
We’d said it in the morning as a casual promise to ourselves — will stop for a drink later — and Peschiera had held us to it. We’ll be back. We already know it.
Total: 1.72 miles · 3,890 steps · 41 mins · 29ft elevation · 4 May 2025