Sirmione

A guided tour of Sirmione will let you discover one of the most enchanting places in the whole lake Garda, so beautiful that it is often referred to as the "pearl of the lake". Its magic atmospheres were already described by the Roman poet Catullus in I century b.C..

Oncoming Tours

From the middle of the southern coast of Lake Garda, a very thin strip of land extends for 4 km (2.5 miles) northwards, in some places just 120 m (390 ft) wide. It is the peninsula of Sirmione, one of the most charming places on Lake Garda, celebrated in various periods by poets and artists.
About two thirds up the peninsula is the town of Sirmione, a picturesque village dating back to the Lombard era, although archaeological excavations have brought to light remains from the Roman age, when the most important centre was located further north. It was an immense Roman villa that tradition indicates as the birthplace of Gaius Valerius Catullus, one of the most famous Latin poets.

The Guided Tour of Sirmione

Sirmione is also a starting point for boat trips on Lake Garda, from the shortest circumnavigations of the Sirmione peninsula to admire the caves of Catullus and the Scaliger Castle from the water, to longer excursions to Borghese Island, Garda Islands, Salò, etc..
The immediate hinterland of Sirmione is also the production area of Lugana wine. There are numerous wineries where it is possible to take guided tours with wine tasting.

The guided tour starts from the entrance of the village, consisting of the southern walls of the middle age Castle. Today access is by means of of a brick bridge, but originally there was a drawbridge that could be lifted if necessary isolating the village. To create the moat was dug the channel that cuts the tip of the peninsula of Sirmione making it in fact an island.
From the small dock always crowded with fishing boats and yachts you can enjoy a beautiful view of the castle, with the donjon and the curtains of crenellated walls.

The Castle

The entrance to the castle is on the right just inside the village. On the entrance portal there are still the Scala family coat of arms (the shield with the ladder) and the lion of St. Mark, emblem of the Serenissima Republic of Venice, symbols of two of the powers that ruled over Sirmione.
From the courtyard you can climb to the battlement walkways and further up to the keep from where you will enjoy an amazing 360° view of the village and the peninsula of Sirmione. From the top of the keep you can clearly see the small dock of the castle surrounded by walls and towers built in the water, which would have protected the boats that took refuge there from enemy attacks.
The present castle was built by Cansignorio della Scala at the end of the 14th century, enlarging a previous fort perhaps built on a Roman or Longobard tower.
The castle is in a perfect state of conservation.

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Through some narrow alleys you reach Piazza Carducci, the heart of Sirmione, with its busy cafes, hotels, restaurants, pizzerias. From Piazza Carducci there are boarding points from which you can take the public navigation line boats or private motorboats on which to venture on a trip on Lake Garda. Near the dock is the bust of Valerio Catullus.

Gaius Valerius Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was born in Sirmione on 84 BC. His was a family rich and important and gave hospitality to Giulius Cesar on a leg of his journeys to Gaul. To give hospitality to a figure like Caesar needed a proper place. This is one of the clues which leads many to believe that the large and sumptuous villa, whose remains the tradition calls "the caves of Catullus", is actually the place where the famous poet was born and spent his childhood.

Catullus moved to Rome around 60 B.C. where he led a dolce vita hanging out with other young artists, personalities of the time, charming women. With one of these, Clodia, he fell madly in love, spending a short but intense love story, which ended because of her volubility: "What a woman says to a passionate lover write it in the wind, or in the flowing water". For Clodia, whom Catullus calls Lesbia, the poet wrote unforgettable verses.
Catullus joined the poetic movement of the neoteroi, which revolutionized the art and poetry of antiquity. At a time when poetry dealt with "high" subjects, telling of gods and heroes, celebrating the powerful, authors like Catullus spoke instead of small things: love, friendship, nostalgia, writing immortal verses for their universality and modernity. Of course there is no lack of words for his beloved Sirmione as in the carme XXXI.

Catullus' Grottoes

And so let's go visit the grottoes of Catullus. You have to go out from the village and continue northwards to the extreme tip of the Sirmione Peninsula. The remains of the ancient Roman villa occupy a surface of about 2 hectares (5 acres - 20,000 square meters) which makes it the largest archaeological site in Northern Italy. These are not true caves of course, but when the villa was abandoned and fell in ruin, a lush and abundant vegetation grew around and over the immense structures of the ruins with their recesses and underground rooms, giving the impression that they were natural caves.
"Caves" in general was what people called the large rooms of buildings and abandoned structures of ancient Roman age. When, with the Renaissance, there was the rediscovery of the ancient art, painters descended with ropes and torches inside these "caves" to study the decorations on the walls from which they drew inspiration: festoons, masks, garlands, etc., were then called grotesque, that is to say in the manner of the grottos paintings.
Villas in ancient times were patrician residences built in the middle of vast estates. Attached to the main residential building were the rustic buildings where farm labourers and slaves lived. Other buildings were used for operations and transformation activities, and as storage rooms for the products or barns.
Very little remains of the main body of the villa of Sirmione. What is impressive today, however, are the remains of the annexes and the supporting structures that sustained the main body. The villa was in fact built on an uneven terrain with depressions and differences in heights which had to be flattened by filling ditches and, where the difference in height was too accentuated, building a complex system of structures that created a wide platform on which the residential part was built.

The entrance was probably on the southern side of the villa. Only few signs of the perimeter walls of some large rooms an traces of mosaic are preserved.

The Spa

The Big Cistern

An even larger cistern is located halfway up the esplanade where the main body of the building was. It was an impressive work, 43 meters (140 ft) of length, 8-9 meters (30 ft) deep, dug into the rock and covered by a vaulted ceiling in bricks arranged in a herringbone pattern which, two thousand years later, is perfectly preserved. It was used to collect the water for any purpose of the entire villa that, built on a rocky spur, was too far from the water of the lake and any underground aquifer.

The Terrace

One can only fantasize about the magnificence that such a villa was meant to express. Such size and grandeur make one suppose that the finishes and furnishings were of a luxury and refinement with few comparisons, built, among other things, in a particularly uncomfortable place, but with the precise intention of enjoying an unparalleled view of the lake that opens before us in all its magnificence.

Abandon

The Museum

Maria Callas

The Spa

The water was channelled and is still distributed to thermal spas and to some hotels.
During the boat trips that circumnavigate the Sirmione peninsula, the boatmen often stop right on the spot above the source. If the lake is calm enough you can see the thick bubbles when they reach the surface and perceive the typical sulfur smell.

Panoramic Promenade

At the end of the guided tour of the Caves of Catullus we will return towards the village along the beautiful promenade that runs along the lake on the eastern side of the peninsula.
You will then pass along the thermal water pumping station. near which you can smell the characteristic smell of sulphur. The excess water is fed back into the lake through pipes of overfilled. Someone, years ago, built a kind of dam... by amassing stones around the gutter, thus creating a rudimentary swimming pool on the lake where the hot water accumulates allowing to free use of the spa.
Along the panoramic promenade you can enjoy some suggestive views of the castle and the village.

Navigation on Lake Garda

From Sirmione it is possible to make boat trips, both on the Garda Navigation Company's vessels that make regular connections with all the villages of Lake Garda, as well as with the numerous private boats with where it is possible to agree personalized tourist itineraries around the peninsula or in various areas of the lake, accompanied by tourist guides who illustrate the history, art, nature and curiosities of the area.