We had a long weekend (an official 4 day break) but the weather was supposed to be bad in Rome so we ditched our plans of a big trip and opted for little day trips to places close to us in Vicenza. First up, was Sirmione at Lake Garda. The Lake has tons of little cities around it, but we stopped at one of the popular places on the south part of the lake. We headed up later in the day after Presley got out of school so we found a room at Relais Du Lac on booking.com (get a first timer discount here) and absolutely loved it. We only stayed one night, but it would have been glorious for a longer stay. The pool was absolutely gorgeous and would be magnificent in the summer when it is warm enough outside. The breakfast in the morning was TO DIE FOR, plus they let us borrow bikes all day after we checked out and even gave us a bottle of wine as a Thank You gift for booking with them.
We headed into town to explore before going to bed and had an amazing dinner (Presley tried clams for the first time and loved them!), we got giant gelato and witnessed this amazing sunset right on the water. If the mosquitos weren’t insane, I could have sat there all night listening to the water and reading. We wandered through the town and some shops before heading back to the hotel to get some rest.
We parked right down by the castle for €1.20 an hour (8 hours max) and rode bikes around for a while before heading in to explore the castle and the streets in town during the day. We knew we wanted to explore the castle so we decided to do that first before grabbing food or exploring anymore.
The Scaligero Castle is a fortress from the Scaliger era, access point to the historical center of Sirmione. It’s one of the most complete and well conserved Italy’s castles and is absolutely incredible to tour. We paid €12 for the three of us to go inside and explore and with that came a pamphlet that explains the incredible history and building stages of the castle dating back to 1277! The castle has 3 main levels that you can tour – the bottom level (with some bathrooms), where you can see some history, the drawbridge & an old well. Stairs take you to another level where you can walk some of the perimeter of the castle & then another tinier set of stairs take you to the very top of the castle were you can get a breathtaking panoramic view of the town.
After we came down 14 trillion stairs we explored Sirmoine by daylight. The views over looking the water were absolutely incredible. We ended up walking the entire point of the peninsula and spent time playing in the water, walking out on the boardwalk, dipping our toes in the natural hot springs & then ultimately making it back to the main town to sit down and enjoy dinner.
Oh my goodness – that last picture? Pretty much my dreams come true – a pink sky and chocolate gelato. I cannot believe this is my life.
To see more pictures & videos from this overnight trip – check out my instagram ‘Sirmoine’ highlight reel!
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