Instead of Lake Garda
Instead of Lake Garda: lake towns within 2 hours
Sirmione is a spa town on a peninsula half a kilometre wide, which means every visitor walks the same street in the same direction.
Garda is fifty kilometres long and the western and northern shores have towns nobody photographs, with the same water and better parking.
Lake towns in our catalogue within 2 hours of Sirmione by road, ranked by outside recognition. Sirmione itself and the other famous places are left out. 21 towns match; the 12 best-recognised are below.
Instead of Lake Garda
Sirmione · 8,248 residents · Lombardia
- Gardone RivieraBrescia
Lake town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Sirmione
- 55m by car
- Residents
- 2,626
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- MalcesineVerona
Lake town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Sirmione
- 1h 25m by car
- Residents
- 3,603
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- Limone sul GardaBrescia
Lake town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Sirmione
- 1h 22m by car
- Residents
- 1,130
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- BondoneTrento
Lake town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Sirmione
- 1h 41m by car
- Residents
- 641
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
- Monte IsolaBrescia
Lake town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Sirmione
- 1h 11m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 1,620
- When to go
- Apr–Oct
The 5 best-recognised of the 21 towns that match. Drive times measured by road from Sirmione. More of them follow below.
Gardone Riviera
Province: Brescia · 71 m
A western Garda lakeshore town whose hillside holds an estate turned into a monument to one man's self-image.
Malcesine
Province: Verona · 89 m
The northernmost Veneto town on Lake Garda, where Goethe was nearly arrested for sketching the Castello Scaligero in September 1786.
Limone sul Garda
Province: Brescia · 65 m
The northernmost lemon-growing town in the world, at 46 degrees north on the western shore of Lake Garda, reached by road only in 1932.
Bondone
Province: Trento · 720 m
A two-village commune above Lake Idro at the Lombard border, with a Lodron castle on the cliff between them.
Monte Isola
Province: Brescia · 600 m
The largest lake island in southern and central Europe, 4.5 square kilometers in Lake Iseo, with no cars and eleven fishing villages on its shore.
Peschiera del Garda
Province: Verona · 68 m
The Venetian fortress town on a Mincio island at the southern outlet of Lake Garda.
Sarnico
Province: Bergamo · 197 m
A medieval lake town at the southern tip of Lago d'Iseo, where the Oglio leaves the lake and Liberty villas line the shore.
Lovere
Province: Bergamo · 200 m
An amphitheater town at the north end of a Lombard lake, in Borghi più belli since 2003, holding Canova plasters inside the Accademia Tadini.
Toscolano-Maderno
Province: Brescia · 72 m
Twin lakeside villages on the western shore of Garda, paper mill suppliers to the Republic of Venice from the 14th century onward.
Salò
Province: Brescia · 65 m
On the deepest gulf of the lake, with the longest waterfront promenade and the cathedral of the Riviera di Salò.
San Zeno di Montagna
Province: Verona · 680 m
A village at 680 meters on the west slope of a mountain, where chestnut groves sit above the eastern shore of a lake.
Iseo
Province: Brescia · 198 m
The main town on the southeast shore of Lake Iseo, gateway to the Franciacorta sparkling wine country.
Drive times measured by road from Sirmione. A town with no time shown is one the router could not reach, usually because it is served by ferry. How this data is built.