Gardone Riviera: Gardens, Villas and D'Annunzio's Hill

The Vittoriale on the Hill

The Vittoriale is the estate Gabriele d'Annunzio built from 1921 with architect Gian Carlo Maroni, now a park of 9 hectares with a warship's bow hauled up the hill and a mausoleum. Only Route A, at $20.11 (€18), includes the house, and the foundation asks you to allow at least 2.5 hours for it. The house visit is guided, about 35 minutes, 10 people at a time, so buy online.

In winter it closes on Mondays and Tuesdays, so check the season table below. Read our full page on the Vittoriale. If you prefer a guide, the 2-hour guided park walk costs $48 and runs in Italian.

Heller Garden

The botanical garden at Via Roma 2 was created from 1903 by Arthur Hruska, an Austrian dentist and botanist, on about 10,000 square metres above the lakefront. It opened to the public in 1972. André Heller owned it from 1988 to 2022 and added sculptures by Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein and Mimmo Paladino, and the Porsche family has owned it since.

The season runs 14 March to 31 October, daily 9:00-19:00, and a ticket is good for one entry any time that day. Groups over 15 pay $12.29 (€11) each. No single adult price is posted, so buy in the garden's online shop.

Paths have steps and are narrow, so no wheelchairs or strollers. Dogs are allowed on a short leash with a muzzle. A public car park sits next to the garden and the boat landing is 5 minutes away on foot.

Torre San Marco and Villa Alba

Two buildings record Gardone's resort years. Torre San Marco, a tower on the lakefront, was bought by d'Annunzio in 1925, and its boathouse once held the MAS 96, the motor torpedo boat of his 1918 raid, which now sits in the Vittoriale park. Villa Alba was built between 1901 and 1909 for the Langensiepen family, pump makers from Westphalia, inside a park of 70,000 m2 with a belvedere tower and a boathouse, and it is now public property.

The tower and the villa sit together on the lakeside road, so one stroll covers both, and the Vittoriale still owns the tower.

San Nicolò and the Divino Infante Museum

The parish church of San Nicolò di Bari, at Via dei Caduti 26, holds frescoes and three medallions on the vault attributed to the local artist Francesco Monti. The Il Divino Infante museum is a different kind of stop: a private collection of over 200 sculptures of the Baby Jesus, the Madonna and Neapolitan nativity scenes, gathered over four centuries of work by the German collector and restorer Hiky Mayr. Its opening hours are not posted on the provincial tourism page, so check with the museum before you build a morning around it.

The church is free to enter outside services and makes a short stop on the way up to the Vittoriale.

The Wimmers and the Grand Hotel

Gardone grew from a farming village into a health resort at the end of the 19th century. Luigi and Emilia Wimmer bought the Cargnacco estate in 1877 and moved there in 1880, and Luigi Wimmer became mayor in 1881. In 1884 he built the Grand Hotel on the lakefront.

A Casino followed in 1909 in Liberty style, and Villa Alba rose between 1901 and 1909 for the Langensiepen family. Before the First World War the season ran all year, and 1912-13 counted 12,636 guests. Winston Churchill stayed at the Grand Hotel in 1949.

Today the town is listed among I Borghi più belli d'Italia, and the Grand Hotel itself is closed for renovation ahead of a planned reopening as part of Hilton's LXR line.

The Republic of Salò Years

Between 1943 and 1945, when Mussolini's German-backed Italian Social Republic made nearby Salò its seat of government, Gardone was pulled into that history. Over 20 buildings in town became offices and residences for the regime. The Grand Hotel Gardone and the Grand Hotel Fasano served as military hospitals, and Villa Fiordaliso on the lakefront was the home of Claretta Petacci.

To understand the wider picture of those years, read our page on Salò, which was the capital, then walk the Gardone lakefront with the map in hand.

Gardone Riviera has no railway station. Take the train to Brescia or Desenzano del Garda, then catch an Arriva bus towards Gargnano. By car, Gardone sits on the SS45bis lakeside road, which is often congested around the town in summer in both directions, so set off early. If you arrive by rental car, the Vittoriale has a paid car park on Via del Vittoriale, and the Heller Garden has a large public car park next to the entrance. In summer, boats are a pleasant alternative. The ordinary run leaves Salò at 11:08 and reaches Gardone at 11:22, continuing to Gargnano and Riva. The fast run leaves Desenzano at 9:20, stops at Salò and calls at Gardone at 10:33. An Ovest zone day pass costs $26.25 (€23.50) and covers the western shore between Maderno and Sirmione. Between 2 November and 12 March no passenger boats run at all, only the Maderno-Torri car ferry, which works all winter. Check the current timetable on our ferry page, and read more about getting around Lake Garda or car rental. Nearby Salò makes an easy pairing.

The summer boat calls at Gardone Riviera on two sample runs of the Navigazione Laghi timetable, which show how far up and down the west shore you can go in a day.

The Heller Garden is a summer attraction. It opens 14 March to 31 October, daily 9:00-19:00, then shuts until spring. The Vittoriale is the opposite. From 25 October it keeps winter hours, 9:30-17:00 on weekdays and 9:30-17:30 at weekends, but it closes every Monday and Tuesday in November, December and January, with a few holiday exceptions, and every Monday in February. It also shuts over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Boats stop running on 2 November, so the bus or your own car is the winter link. A winter day in Gardone therefore means the Vittoriale, Wednesday to Sunday, plus a quiet lakefront walk. See what else stays open in winter.

When the two big sights of Gardone Riviera open, from the Vittoriale's booking shop and the Heller Garden's own ticket page.

Two hours cover the Heller Garden and a stroll along the lakefront. Give half a day if you take Route A at the Vittoriale, which includes the guided house visit and needs at least 2.5 hours on its own, plus the park and museums. The guided park tour in our tours runs 2 hours. For a full day, add Salò, the next town south, or browse more things to do nearby. A tight one-day itinerary usually skips Gardone in favour of the bigger names.

Three ways to plan time in Gardone Riviera. The hours are our estimates, apart from the Vittoriale's own recommended visit length.

Each of these changes how you plan the visit, and each ends with its source.

- Gardone grew from a farming village into a health resort at the end of the 19th century, when doctors sent patients with lung disease to mild lakes (Wikipedia). - The estate that became the Vittoriale was first bought in 1877 by Luigi and Emilia Wimmer, the family that later built the Grand Hotel (Wikipedia). - The Grand Hotel Gardone is closed for a full renovation and plans to reopen in 2027 (Grand Hotel Gardone). - Arthur Hruska, who started the Heller Garden in 1903, was a dentist as well as a botanist (Wikipedia). - Heller Garden tickets are valid for one entry at any time that day, so you can arrive late morning and stay to closing (Heller Garden).

Gardone works best as the anchor of a west-shore day. Combine it with Salò, the next town south, and you get the Vittoriale, the Heller Garden and the longest lakefront promenade on Lake Garda in one outing. As a base it suits travellers who want quiet evenings and grand hotels rather than nightlife, though it lacks a station and the road is slow in summer, so first-time visitors without a car usually do better basing in a railway town.

Compare options on our where to stay page, or let a guided tour handle the driving.