What is Costermano sul Garda known for?

Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof opened in 1967, with 21,931 Second World War graves, the second-largest German cemetery in Italy. Morainal-hill position at 237 meters above the eastern shore, with a continuous view across the lake to the Monte Baldo ridge. Olive groves and Bardolino DOC vines on the moraine slopes, the working agriculture behind the holiday economy.

When is the best time to visit Costermano sul Garda?

Apr–Oct. April through October is the working window. April and May bring the lake back to swimming temperature on the shore four kilometers below, and the morainal hills into wildflower. June through August fills the holiday rentals and the lakefront day-traffic from Garda and Bardolino; the hills stay a few degrees cooler than the shore. September and October are the harvest months for olives and wine. November through March is quiet, with the cemetery still open daily and most holiday accommodation closed. Fog can sit over the lake for days at this elevation. The view from the Madonna del Castello toward Monte Baldo is clearest after the first October rain when the haze lifts off the basin.

Where is Costermano sul Garda?

Costermano sul Garda is a comune in the province of Verona, Veneto region of Italy, about 35 kilometers from Verona.

How do I get to Costermano sul Garda?

From Verona, Costermano sul Garda is roughly 35 km by road.

Veneto · Verona

Costermano sul Garda

A morainal-hill commune above the eastern shore, home to one of the largest German military cemeteries in Italy.

Known for

GERMAN CEMETERY
Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof opened in 1967, with 21,931 Second World War graves, the second-largest German cemetery in Italy.
GARDA BALCONY
Morainal-hill position at 237 meters above the eastern shore, with a continuous view across the lake to the Monte Baldo ridge.
OLIVE AND WINE
Olive groves and Bardolino DOC vines on the moraine slopes, the working agriculture behind the holiday economy.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

The festa: Antonio abate, 17 January

Why come

The commune sits on a moraine amphitheater twenty-five kilometers northwest of Verona. The hills were a feud of the Brescia monastery of Santa Giulia in the early Middle Ages, then passed through Scaliger and Venetian rule before joining Italy in 1866; the name sul Garda was added only in 2018, to anchor the town's tourism identity to the water it sits above rather than on. That distinction matters here: this is not a lakefront village but a hill settlement looking down at the shore, its center, its cemetery hill, and its vineyard slopes arranged around the belvedere at Marciaga rather than around a harbor.

The economy runs on olive oil and hillside vines, and on the holiday accommodation that has filled these slopes since the 1970s, but the single largest reason people come here is not agricultural. The cemetery holds the dead of a war fought decades after the monastery's feud and centuries after the Scaliger lords, and it sits on the same morainal hill as the sanctuary, the parish church, and the vine rows, a place where the working landscape and the memorial landscape occupy the same short walk rather than separate zones.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Costermano sul Garda’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

What to see

Santuario della Madonna del Castello
Sanctuary on the spur of Marciaga, its fifteenth-century frescoes intact, with a terrace looking over Lake Garda and the eastern shore.
Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof
The graves cover the hillside above the lake, laid out since 1967 for the dead of the Second World War, a place kept in silence rather than commentary.
Chiesa di San Siro
Parish church rebuilt in the nineteenth century in the center of the village, its freestanding campanile visible from the surrounding slopes, with a sightline to Monte Baldo across the water.
Belvedere di Marciaga
Lookout above the village at around 350 meters, the principal point from which the lake and the morainal amphitheater are read as one landscape.
Bardolino DOC vineyards
Hillside vines for the Corvina-Rondinella-Molinara wines of the Bardolino zone, with cantine open through the warm months.

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Living here

Population 3,974
In-betweeni
Pharmacy in town
High school within a 30-minute drive
Train station in the comune
Nearest airport Verona, 42 min drive
Regional capital Venezia, 1 h 40 min drive

Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

Elevation: 237 m
Population: 3,974
Surface area: 16.74 km²

On the map

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These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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