Vittoriale degli Italiani: Tickets, House Slots and the Park

Route A is the complete visit: monumental park, all three museums and the guided tour of the Prioria, d'Annunzio's house. It costs $20.11 (€18), reduced $15.64 (€14), and you should allow at least 2.5 hours. Route C covers the park and the same three museums without the house, at $16.76 (€15) reduced $13.41 (€12), and needs 1.5-2 hours. Route B is the park plus two museums, $13.41 (€12) reduced $11.17 (€10), at least 1 hour, and it is the only route that admits animals. Reduced prices apply to ages 7 to 18, over 65, families with two paying parents and at least one paying child 7 to 18, and a few card holders. Children up to 6 enter free, and disabled visitors over 70% enter free. Buy online until the evening before: full-route tickets are limited by house slots and all tickets are non-refundable. The guided park walk in Italian only costs $48, lasts 2 hours, includes the park and two museums, and the house can be added. Compare ticket pages for the rest of the lake on our tickets hub.

The three ticket routes of the Vittoriale degli Italiani and what each one adds, from the foundation's own booking shop. Only Route A goes inside the house.

The House Slot Rule

The Prioria visit is compulsory guided. It lasts about 35 minutes, takes 10 people at a time, and runs at the fixed time printed on your ticket. Be at the entrance 30 minutes before that time.

If you are late you move to a later slot only if one is free, and you pay a $6.70 (€6) supplement per ticket. Tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable. Bags, belt bags and cameras go in the cloakroom before the interiors.

The house is not wheelchair accessible, so wheelchair users watch a film about it in the Auditorium instead, reached by the lift in the bookshop.

Rooms of the Priory

d'Annunzio filled the Prioria with about 10,000 objects and 33,000 books, and the guided visit runs you through the strangest of them. The Mascheraio was a waiting room for unwelcome guests, with a warning inscription set over the mirror. The Music Room was finished in 1929, seven years after he fell from one of its windows in August 1922.

He died at his desk in the Zambracca on 1 March 1938. There is the Leda bedroom, the Blue Bathroom holding about 850 objects, and the Leper's Room where his body lay on the night of 1-2 March 1938. The Relics room keeps the twisted steering wheel of Henry Segrave's speedboat, and the Officina study has a low door you bow to enter.

The Parlaggio Theatre

The Parlaggio is the estate's open-air theatre, carved into the hillside. Architect Gian Carlo Maroni studied Pompeii in 1931 before designing it, and the work was completed in 1952, fourteen years after the poet's death. It opened in 1953 with a concert by a La Scala orchestra.

In 2020 the tiers were clad in red Verona marble, so it reads as a single sculpted block above the lake. It is the first big structure after the entrance, and it is still used for summer performances.

The Flight Over Vienna and the MAS

Two war machines d'Annunzio made famous are kept on the estate. The two-seat SVA biplane that flew the propaganda raid over Vienna on 9 August 1918 hangs in the Auditorium, suspended from the ceiling. MAS 96, the motor torpedo boat of the Buccari raid on the night of 10-11 February 1918, sits in its own shelter on the path from the swan pond toward the Mausoleum.

When it first reached Gardone it was moored at the Torre San Marco boathouse, and d'Annunzio used it to take guests out on the lake. The Auditorium with the plane is one of the few wheelchair accessible buildings, reached by the lift in the bookshop.

Regia Nave Puglia

The strangest sight at the Vittoriale is a warship bow planted on the hillside, pointing toward the Adriatic. The bow of the Regia Nave Puglia was a gift from Admiral Thaon di Revel. It was brought up in pieces by rail and rebuilt into the slope, with the works finished by 24 July 1925.

A small museum sits on board, so you can walk the deck and look back down over the lake. When d'Annunzio brought important guests aboard, the sailors on watch fired a salute.

The Mausoleum

At the highest point of the park stands the Mausoleum, built in Botticino marble after d'Annunzio's death. He is buried there among the legionaries of Fiume, the men of the free city he seized in 1919. His remains stayed in the Tempietto delle Memorie until they were moved to the mausoleum in 1963.

It is a circular monument modelled on Roman tumulus tombs, reached by a winding path that echoes Dante's circles, and it looks out over the whole park and the lake.

Laghetto delle Danze and the Rose Garden

The Laghetto delle Danze is a pond shaped like a violin, reopened to the public in 2013, at the bottom of the park where the two streams, the Acqua pazza and the Acqua savia, meet below the Puglia. D'Annunzio and Luisa Baccara held concerts here with the Vittoriale's own quartet. The rose garden nearby holds over 500 varieties, among them a rose bred for d'Annunzio.

By the entrance, the motto reads Io ho quel che ho donato, I have what I have given. A refreshment area in the park opens in summer only, so outside those months bring water. Plan the rest of your stay with our where to stay pages.

From Villa Cargnacco to the Vittoriale

The estate began as Villa Cargnacco, owned by the German art historian Henry Thode and seized by the Italian state during the First World War. D'Annunzio rented it on 1 February 1921 and bought it outright on 31 October 1921. With the architect Gian Carlo Maroni, who came from Arco, he kept building and rebuilding for the rest of his life.

He fell from a window of the Music Room on 13 August 1922 and survived. On 22 December 1923 he signed a deed of gift handing the property to the Italian people, though he went on living there. The park now covers 9 hectares and the site draws about 300,000 visitors a year.

The Last Years

A foundation was set up on 17 July 1937 to run the estate after his death. He died on 1 March 1938 at his desk in the Zambracca, the study inside the Prioria. His body lay overnight in the Leper's Room before the funeral.

In the park, the warships and trophies he collected had already been set into the hillside: the MAS boat arrived in January 1925 and the bow of the Puglia was in place by 24 July 1925. He is buried in the Mausoleum on the highest point of the grounds.

By car, take the paid car park on Via del Vittoriale, uphill on the right, with a pay machine at the barrier. The entrance is just beyond it in Piazza del Vittoriale. The SS45bis road along the shore is often congested around Gardone in summer, so allow extra time.

There is no railway station in Gardone: take the train to Brescia or Desenzano and catch an Arriva bus towards Gargnano. In summer the boats are the nicer way in. The fast run from Desenzano reaches Gardone at 10:33 and the ordinary run at 11:22.

From 2 November to 12 March no passenger boats run on the lake, so winter visitors arrive by bus or car. Wheelchair users can visit the D'Annunzio Segreto museum, the L'Automobile è femmina museum and the Auditorium, which has a lift inside the bookshop. The Prioria itself is not wheelchair accessible.

Disabled visitors over 70 percent enter free. See getting around Lake Garda and the Lake Garda ferry pages, or pair the visit with Salò down the road.

Route B, park plus two museums, needs at least an hour. Route C adds a third museum and takes 1.5 to 2 hours. Route A, the full visit with the guided tour of the house, needs at least 2.5 hours, and you must also be at the house entrance 30 minutes before your printed slot. If you have a spare half day, Gardone has more to offer: the Heller Garden on Via Roma is a botanical garden in the town centre, open 14 March to 31 October daily from 9:00 to 19:00, so in season the two fit into one day. For more ideas, see things to do at Lake Garda.

Three ways to plan a visit to the Vittoriale degli Italiani, with the foundation's own recommended times and the early arrival the house visit needs.

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

- Late arrivals for the house visit are moved to a later slot only if one is free, and pay a $6.70 (€6) supplement per ticket (Il Vittoriale). - Bags, belt bags and cameras must be left in the cloakroom before you go inside the buildings (Il Vittoriale). - The house is not wheelchair accessible, but a film of its rooms plays in the Auditorium, which has a lift (Il Vittoriale). - The bow of the cruiser Puglia arrived in Gardone in pieces on railway wagons and was rebuilt on site (Il Vittoriale). - The Parlaggio theatre was clad in red Verona marble in 2020, as d'Annunzio had wanted (Il Vittoriale).

The Vittoriale anchors a west shore day. Start in Gardone Riviera, spend two to three hours on the estate, then continue to Salò, the next town south, for the promenade and lunch. Give Route A the morning, since house slots run out on busy days.

If you are planning a whole trip around the lake, the Lake Garda towns and day trips pages sort the rest of the lake, and Lake Garda tours covers the guided options.