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00 Lazise
Stemma di Lazise

Veneto · Verona

Lazise

The walled port granted the right to fortify in 983, considered the first comune in Italy.

Best time
Apr–Oct
By car
36 min from Verona
Population
6,852

Known for

  • 983 CHARTER

    Otto I's grant to fortify the village and collect tolls, often cited as the founding act of the first comune in Italy.

  • SCALIGER WALLS

    1.5 kilometers of fourteenth-century fortifications with the castle and harbor, the most complete surviving Scaliger ring on the lake.

  • BARDOLINO DOC

    Lazise grows the red Bardolino DOC on the morainic hills behind the town and joins Bardolino and Cavaion in the Strada del Vino.

  • PESCA DI VERONA

    The commune also lies inside the Pesca di Verona IGP production zone.

When to visit

Best · Apr–Oct

  • J8°
  • F12°
  • M15°
  • A18°
  • M22°
  • J27°
  • J30°
  • A29°
  • S25°
  • O20°
  • N13°
  • D9°
  • Best
  • Hot or crowded
  • Quiet
  • Mostly closed

Daytime averages, 2020–2024. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com.

The festa: Martino di Tours, 11 November

Why come

Lazise sits on the southeastern shore of Lake Garda, twenty kilometers northwest of Verona. The first walls went up shortly after the 983 charter; Venice took the town in 1405 and held it until Napoleon arrived in 1796, and Porta Lion, on the south, still carries the winged lion of Saint Mark from that period of rule. The castle anchors the southern corner of the fortifications while the harbor sits enclosed within their reach, and the church and the customs house both face onto that same stretch of water, one built for worship and later pressed into use as a warehouse, the other built outright for Venice to tax what passed through the port.

Behind the town, the morainic hills carry the vines of the Bardolino DOC, and Lazise counts itself among the Veneto's wine and honey communes. The town reads, in short, as a small fortified port whose walls, harbor and customs works were all built to serve and guard the same trade on the same shore.

The Sunday letter

Lazise is on our list. Its letter is still to come.

We are writing about all 1,000 of these towns, one at a time, in a free letter every Sunday: the photo, the food, the festa. That is our mission. Sign up and you will be there when Lazise comes up. By Peter & Sophia, from Pietrasanta.

Read on

Lazise in our articles

How to get there

From Verona (VRN), about 40 minutes by car.

Milan (BGY) is about 1h 11m away.

By car from the centre of Brescia 48 minutes or Trento 1 hour.

Coming by train into Verona Porta Nuova? Lazise is about 33 minutes away by road.

Every town within reach of Verona airport.

Lazise, photo 1
Lazise, photo 2

What to see

  • Castello Scaligero

    Rectangular fortress at the south corner of the walls, with five square towers and a fortified dock built for the lake galleys, facing Lake Garda.

  • Mura medievali

    Thirteen surviving towers and three gates, San Zeno, Nuova and Lion, ring the old town along the shore of Lake Garda.

  • Chiesa di San Nicolò

    Romanesque church on the harbor, with frescoes attributed to the Giotto school and a former function as a customs warehouse.

  • Porto Vecchio

    Medieval harbor protected by the castle walls, the oldest enclosed port on Lake Garda, with the customs house on its northern edge.

  • Dogana Veneta

    Customs house built in the sixteenth century, used by Venice to collect duties on lake trade, now an event venue overlooking the old harbor.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Lazise fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

Plan your trip

We recommend

Where to stay

Not our picks, but places the guides put their name to: a Michelin star, a Gambero Rosso fork, a Slow Food snail, a Michelin Key for the hotels. Worth a table, a counter, or a night when you pass through.

  • Natiia RelaisHotel

    Natiia Relais holds a place in the Michelin hotel guide.

Living here

  • Population 6,852
  • In-betweeni
  • Pharmacy in town
  • High school within a 30-minute drive
  • Nearest airport Verona, 40 min drive
  • Regional capital Venezia, 1 h 40 min drive

Common questions

What is Lazise known for?
Lazise is the walled port granted the right to fortify in 983, considered the first comune in Italy.
Where is Lazise?
Lazise is a comune in the province of Verona, in Veneto, at 76 meters above sea level.
What is the nearest airport to Lazise?
Verona (VRN), about 40 minutes by car.
How long is the drive from Brescia to Lazise?
About 48 minutes by car.
When is the best time to visit Lazise?
Best in Apr–Oct. July is the warmest month, averaging 30 degrees, and May the wettest, with about 16 rain days.
Is there a sagra or a festival in Lazise?
The town keeps its patron saint's day: Martino di Tours, 11 November.
Which other towns are like Lazise?
Bardolino, Malcesine and Trevignano Romano.
How many people live in Lazise?
6,852 at the 2023 count.
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

The numbers

  • Elevation: 76 m
  • Population: 6,852
  • Surface area: 63.15 km²

These figures were compiled from public directories: ISTAT, OpenStreetMap and 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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