Castello Scaligero di Malcesine: Hours, Prices and What to See Inside

The Casermetta and the Natural History Museum

You enter through the first courtyard. On the left stands the Casermetta, the lower building where the castle guard once lodged. Its basement and ground floor hold the Monte Baldo and Garda Natural History Museum, renovated in May 2008 with a multimedia layout: you can look, touch, smell, listen and use touch screens, and the windows onto the landscape are treated as part of the route.

Because the museum covers the mountain that rises behind the town, it is a useful first stop if you plan to ride the Monte Baldo cable car the same day. An outside staircase climbs to the top floor of the Casermetta, a hall used for exhibitions and weddings. The castle's address is Via Castello 39, a short climb through the cobbled lanes of the old town.

The Balcony 24 Metres Above the Lake

At the far end of the first courtyard a small balcony juts out over the water, 24 m above the surface of the lake. It is the first open view of the visit: the water directly below, the mountains around the bay and the line of the shore. Hold children's hands here, because the balcony sits right on the edge of the rock.

The tower above you is a different measure: 31 m high on its base and about 70 m above the lake at the top. If you only have a short time, this balcony and the tower are the two viewpoints to keep. The Siora Veronica sailing cruise shows you the same rock from the water on its way back into Malcesine harbour.

Sala Goethe in the Austrian Powder Magazine

A stepped ramp climbs from the first courtyard to the powder magazine the Austrians built after they took the castle, now called Sala Goethe. It shows the images Goethe drew of the lake and of the castle on his Italian journey, with the colours of the region reproduced as he described them in what became his Theory of Colours. Beyond the room, in a small garden set aside as a quiet corner, stands the poet's bust.

The story behind the room is the best-known on the lake: in September 1786 Goethe was questioned by the local magistrate on suspicion of being an Austrian spy after sketching this castle. The magazine itself had a later life as a prison of the Guardia di Finanza. Read the full episode in the Goethe section.

The Rivellino Courtyard

From Sala Goethe you climb to the second courtyard, the Rivellino. It is a raised platform with a view over the town, the lake and the western flank of Monte Baldo, and it is one of the two places in the castle the town tourism portal singles out for the full panorama, the other being the tower. Civil weddings are celebrated on the Rivellino, so expect chairs or flowers on some days.

Coming down the stairs from the Rivellino, look at the eastern wall: the remains of frescoes there are probably what is left of a Scaliger chapel. The courtyard has no separate ticket. It is part of the single entry, which costs $7.82 (€7) for an adult.

The Lacaòr Open-Air Theatre

Through the gate beyond the Rivellino opens a space called the Lacaòr, probably one of the oldest protohistoric settlements in Malcesine. In summer it becomes an open-air theatre with 400 seats. Entry is allowed only during events, so a daytime ticket does not get you in, and on most visits you will see it only from the gate.

If your dates fall in summer, look at the town's event listings before you come: a concert inside the walls is a very different evening from a sightseeing visit. The castle's own late hours are a separate thing: from 23 May to 27 September it stays open to 22:00 on Friday and Saturday, last entry 21:30, which makes an evening visit possible even with no event on.

The Third Courtyard, the Well and the Frescoes

The highest and most northerly courtyard is reached by a ramp and through a Scaliger gateway. After a short ramp you meet a well. To its left, in the north-east corner of the square below the tower, a fresco of the Madonna and Child survives, perhaps the trace of an old chapel.

From the well a staircase built by the Austrians climbs to the Sala Congressi of the Scaliger Residence, opened in 1989 for about 150 people, and on to the tower. On the ground floor of the Residence the town plans a museum of local history that would take in the present museum of the Venetian galleys. That museum tells two stories: the ships Venice hauled overland to the lake, and the attempt to raise a Venetian galley sunk off the port of Lazise.

The Tower, the Lookout Room and the 1442 Bell

The tower, or keep, is the end of the climb. It has an irregular pentagonal plan, stands 31 m high on its base and rises about 70 m above the lake. The lower part was built by the Lombards, and you can see the change in materials where their tower stopped.

Five rooms open at the upper level. On the second-to-last, a graffito that has since been erased once carried the name of Conrad II and the date 1131, which suggests this part of the tower was finished that year. The fifth room, the lookout, has six windows in walls 80 cm thick.

In 1909 its floor was cemented and the communal bell of 1442 was placed in the middle. Last entry to the castle is 30 minutes before closing, so start the climb in good time.

Opening Hours by Season

The opening periods below come from the two castle pages of the Malcesine town tourism portal. The date to plan around: from 23 May to 27 September the castle stays open on Friday and Saturday evenings until 22:00, its only evening opening. In winter it opens on Saturday and Sunday only, except every day from 5 December to 6 January.

The two town pages give different closing times for the autumn weeks, 18:00 or 18:30, so check before an autumn afternoon visit.

Ticket Prices

Prices come from the town tourism portal's castle page and are paid at the castle entrance. The reduced rate covers a wide group, so ask for it if anyone in your party is over 65, aged 14-17, a student with a card, or part of a group of 10 or more adults.

Paying for a Family

A family of two adults and two children aged 6-13 pays $22.34 (€20), our sum. Children aged 5 and under go in free. The town page lists no online sale, so there is nothing to book: you pay at the castle.

Carry the student card or ID that proves a reduction, because the reduced rate is tied to those groups. The castle is no substitute for the cable car on price either way: an adult return on the Monte Baldo cable car is $33.52 (€30) at the desk, more than four castle tickets.

Lombards, Franks and King Pepin

The town tourism portal notes a tradition that a stronghold stood here in the last centuries before Christ, but the firmer record is a castle built by the Lombards around the middle of the first millennium. The Franks destroyed it in 590, rebuilt it themselves, and in 806 it hosted King Pepin, who had come to Malcesine to visit Saints Benigno and Caro. After the Hungarian raids the castle became one of the fiefs of the Bishop of Verona.

Remnants of an Etruscan tomb have been found within the walls, so the rock was used long before any of these powers. The tower graffito naming Conrad II and 1131 shows that a fortress stood here well before the family whose name it carries.

The Scaligers, Visconti and Venice

In 1277 the castle passed to Alberto della Scala, and the della Scala family held it until 1387. Their works gave it the name it still has, Castello Scaligero, and the swallow-tail Ghibelline merlons on the walls. The Visconti of Milan held it from 1387 to 1403.

The Republic of Venice took it in 1405 and kept it until 1797, apart from 1506-1516, when it was under Imperial rule in the reign of Maximilian I. The communal bell in the tower dates from this Venetian period, cast in 1442 and still in service. Venice also left the Palazzo dei Capitani on the harbour below, remodelled in Venetian style by 1477 and bought by Verona in 1618 as the seat of the Capitano del Lago.

Austria Builds a Garrison

Napoleon's forces occupied the area in 1797-98, and from 1798 the Austrians replaced the French. They carried out major consolidation work inside the castle and stayed until 1866, turning it into a military garrison. The powder magazine they built is today's Sala Goethe, and the staircase from the well to the tower is also theirs.

After 1866 the castle followed Veneto into the Kingdom of Italy, and the Austrian munition store was used by the Guardia di Finanza as a prison. Much of what you walk through, the guard house, the ramp to the magazine, the stair to the tower, is the work of soldiers rather than of a court.

National Monument

The castle was declared a national monument on 22 August 1902. The Palazzo dei Capitani on the harbour has carried the same status since 1902. In 1909 the floor of the tower's lookout room was cemented and the 1442 bell was set in it.

Later additions were modest: the Sala Congressi opened in 1989 for about 150 people, and the natural history museum in the Casermetta was renovated in May 2008. Today the castle is at once a monument, a museum, a wedding venue on the Rivellino and a summer stage in the Lacaòr. For the castle at the other end of the lake, built by the same family, see Sirmione castle.

The Arrest of a Poet

In September 1786 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stopped at Malcesine on his Italian journey and sat down to sketch the castle. The local magistrate questioned him on suspicion of being an Austrian spy. Goethe talked his way out and wrote the episode into his Italian Journey under 13 September 1786, which is why the story survives in such detail.

The castle was Venetian at the time: Austria arrived only in 1798, after Napoleon. The episode is also a reason to look at the rock from the water, the angle a traveller sees from the Siora Veronica sailing cruise.

The Room That Carries His Drawings

The room that carries his name is the powder magazine the Austrians built inside the castle after 1798, so it did not exist when Goethe sat sketching outside. Today Sala Goethe shows the images he drew of the lake and the castle, with the colours of the region reproduced as he saw them, and his bust stands in the small garden beyond. The building had another life before it became a museum room: after 1866 the Guardia di Finanza used the Austrian munition store as a prison.

The room is included in the standard ticket, $7.82 (€7) for an adult, and sits on the ramp between the first courtyard and the Rivellino, so you pass it on any route to the tower.

The castle charges one flat ticket, so the difference between a short visit and a full one costs nothing. What changes is if you add the museum, Sala Goethe and the frescoes or go straight for the tower. The castle publishes no visit length, so the three routings below describe what each covers rather than a time.

The third row is the most common plan on this shore. Remember that last entry is 30 minutes before closing.

The Castle and the Cable Car Are Neighbours

Malcesine Castle is about 5 minutes on foot from the valley station of the Monte Baldo cable car, according to the cable car operator. That puts both sights within one parking stop: leave the car at the valley station car park and walk. The two keep different calendars, though.

The cable car closes for maintenance from 2 November to 25 December, while the castle opens on winter weekends and every day from 5 December to 6 January. Read the Monte Baldo guide before you fix the order of your day, and see Lake Garda tours for boat trips from this shore.

By Bus, Lines 483 and 484

Two bus lines serve the cable car and the town: line 483 runs Peschiera, Garda and Malcesine along the east shore, and line 484 runs Garda, Malcesine and Riva del Garda, so the castle is reachable by bus from both the south-east shore and the north tip. Malcesine has no railway. The cable car operator names Rovereto as the nearest station from the north and Verona or Peschiera from the south, with the bus for the last stretch.

Bus timetables change with the season, so check the current one before you plan around a castle closing time. The getting around Lake Garda guide covers the bus and boat network as a whole.

Parking at the Valley Station

The cable car's own underground car park, about 5 minutes on foot from the castle, holds 170 spaces, 4 of them for disabled badge holders. It opens 8:00 to 19:30, with entry until 18:00, or 16:00 from 5 October. A car left inside after closing cannot be collected until the next morning, which matters on a Friday or Saturday in summer if you stay at the castle until 22:00.

A lost ticket costs $55.86 (€50). Other paid options: 16 outdoor spaces in front of the station, the Colonie car park 150 m away and the Basinel car park about 700 m away. Campers and buses use Retelino, about 1 km away.

The hourly rates for the underground car park, from the operator's parking page:

Arriving by Ferry

Malcesine is a stop on the Navigazione Laghi line between Desenzano and Riva del Garda, and the castle stands above the old town close to the harbour. Boats run only in the sailing season: no passenger boats run anywhere on the lake from 2 November to 12 March, which is exactly when the castle is on its winter weekend calendar. Check the fares and timetables on the Lake Garda ferry page before you plan a boat day, and look at the Siora Veronica sailing cruise, which leaves from Malcesine harbour itself.

On Foot From the Cable Car

The cable car operator puts the castle about 5 minutes on foot from the valley station at Via Navene Vecchia 12. That short walk is why most visitors do both on one visit. The usual order is the mountain first, while the morning is clear, and the castle afterwards.

Reverse it if cloud sits on the ridge. From 2 November to 25 December the cable car is closed for maintenance, so for those weeks the castle stands alone, and only on its winter days. Fares for the ride are on Monte Baldo cable car tickets.

Details Worth Knowing Before You Climb

Most visitors climb straight to the tower and leave. These five details give the walls a second read and cost nothing extra.

• A graffito in the tower, since erased, carried the name of Conrad II and the year 1131, which dates that part of the tower (Visit Malcesine).
• The communal bell of 1442 was set in the floor of the tower's lookout room in 1909, when that floor was cemented (Visit Malcesine).
• Remnants of an Etruscan tomb were found within the walls, meaning the rock was used long before the medieval castle (Wikipedia).
• The Rivellino, the second courtyard, is where Malcesine celebrates civil weddings (Visit Malcesine).
• The Lacaòr beyond the Rivellino is probably one of the oldest protohistoric settlements in Malcesine, and in summer it becomes a 400-seat open-air theatre you can enter only during events (Visit Malcesine).

A Summer Day

In summer, ride the cable car first. It runs 4 April to 1 November with the first ascent at 8:15 and departures at least every 30 minutes from 8:30, weather permitting, and the valley station is about 5 minutes on foot from the castle. Come down, eat in town, then take the castle in the afternoon.

From 23 May to 27 September it stays open to 19:30, and on Friday and Saturday to 22:00, with last entry at 21:30. To end the day on the water, the Siora Veronica sailing cruise sails 2 hours from Malcesine harbour on the afternoon wind and passes under the castle on its return. The wider list of things to do in Lake Garda has the rest of the shore.

A Winter Day

Winter flips the plan. The cable car closes for maintenance 2 November to 25 December and reopens for its winter season 26 December to 21 February, so in November and most of December the castle runs without its neighbour. It then opens on Saturday and Sunday only, 10:30-17:00, except every day from 5 December to 6 January.

Plan a weekend, or the Christmas fortnight, and expect no passenger boats on the lake until 12 March. The Lake Garda in winter guide covers what else stays open. From 26 December the 5-minute walk between lift and castle works again.

For the whole lake, start at what to see in Lake Garda.