Lake Garda: Postcard Views and Breakfast Worth Writing Home About
The next adventure with Backroads had us back on our bikes and heading toward Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy. It stretches across three regions—Lombardy, Veneto, and Trentino-Alto Adige—and sits at the foot of the Alps looking like Mother Nature decided to show off a little.
I’ll post plenty of pictures because, honestly, I’m not sure words can do it justice. Sometimes a place is so beautiful that your vocabulary shrinks to “Wow” and “Look at that.”
One of the things I enjoy about traveling with Backroads is that they make it easy to focus on the experience. The bikes are great, the routes are well thought out, there’s plenty of support on the road, and the guides somehow manage to be both highly competent and genuinely fun to spend time with.
Whenever I start pedaling a little too hard, I remind myself that this is not the Tour de France. Nobody is handing out yellow jerseys at dinner. The goal is to slow down, look around, and enjoy the views because chances are I’m not coming back this way again.
And what views they are.
Every turn seemed to reveal another postcard scene—mountains dropping into the lake, colorful villages clinging to the shoreline, sailboats floating across water so blue it looked Photoshopped.
For the next three nights we’re staying at the Lido Palace, a grand hotel that first opened in 1899. It’s elegant without being stuffy and sits right on the edge of the lake. And then there’s the breakfast.
I try not to build my travel plans around breakfast buffets, but if someone told me I had to spend another week here solely for the breakfast, I could probably make that sacrifice.
Three nights meant two glorious days of biking and one final day of hiking. By this point in the trip, everyone was making important life decisions. I chose the hike. Chad chose the laundromat.
Chad decided his time would be better spent practicing his Italian with washing machines and deciphering laundry instructions that appeared to have been translated from Italian into German and then back again.
His sacrifice meant he missed one of the most beautiful sights of the trip: an incredible alpine lake so intensely blue it looked Photoshopped. We were told the color comes from the limestone beneath the water, which reflects the light and creates that unreal shade of turquoise that makes you wonder if nature is showing off.
While I enjoyed the scenery, Chad enjoyed the spin cycle. In the end, I came back with photos of a spectacular lake, and Chad came back with clean underwear. Honestly, both victories felt equally important.
