EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

GARDONE RIVIERA was once the most fashionable of Garda's resorts and still retains its symbols of sophistication, though the elegant promenade, lush gardens, opulent villas and ritzy hotels now have to compete with more recent - and less tasteful - tourist tack. It is famous for the consistency of its climate, and has Garda's most exotic botanical garden, the Giardino Botanico Hruska (mid-March to mid-Oct daily 9am-6.30pm; L8000/4.13), laid out among artificial cliffs and streams.

The highlight of Gardone, and indeed of the whole lake, is Il Vittoriale (Tues-Sun: April-Sept 8.30am-8pm; Oct-March 9am-12.30pm & 2-5.30pm; www.vittoriale.gs.net.it ; L30,000/15.49), the home of Italy's most notorious and extravagant twentieth-century writer, Gabriele D'Annunzio. Weight of numbers means that tickets for the house itself are restricted at peak times (Sundays, national holidays, some days in July & Aug), when you must arrive well before the opening times to be sure of a ticket for the house - even then, be prepared for a scrum. Once tickets for the house are sold out, you can only visit the grounds, the mausoleum, a small musuem and the ship Puglia , beached somewhat incongruously among cypress trees in the park, for a reduced fee of L12,000/6.20.

Born in 1863, D'Annunzio was no ordinary writer. He did pen some exquisite poetry and a number of novels, but he became better known as a soldier and socialite, leading his own private army and indulging in much-publicized affairs with numerous women, including the actress Eleonora Duse. When berated by his friends for treating her cruelly, he simply replied, "I gave her everything, even suffering". He was a fervent supporter of Mussolini, providing the Fascist Party with their (meaningless) war cry, eia! eia! alalá , though Mussolini eventually found his excessive exhibitionism an embarrassment (his boasts of eating dead babies, certainly, were bad publicity), and in 1925 presented him with this villa - ostensibly as a reward for his patriotism, in reality to shut him up.

Once D'Annunzio had had the house "de-Germanized", as he put it (the house had been confiscated from the German art critic Henry Thode), it didn't take him long to transform Mussolini's Liberty-style gift into the Hollywood studio look-alike you see now. Outside, rammed into the cypress-covered hillside, is the prow of the battleship Puglia used in D'Annunzio's so-called "Fiume adventure". Fiume (now Rijeka), on the North Adriatic, had been promised to Italy before they entered World War I, but was eventually handed over to Yugoslavia instead. Incensed, D'Annunzio gathered together his army, occupied Fiume, and returned home a national hero. D'Annunzio's personality makes itself felt from the start in the two reception rooms - one a chilly and formal room for guests he didn't like, the other warm and inviting for those he did. Il Duce was apparently shown to the former, where the mirror has an inscription reputedly aimed at him - "Remember that you are made of glass and I of steel."

Nor was dining with D'Annunzio a reassuring experience: roast baby may not have featured on the menu, but in the glitzy dining room, as a warning to greedy guests, pride of place was given to a gilded and embalmed tortoise who had died of overeating. In fact D'Annunzio rarely ate with his guests, retreating instead to the Sala di Lebbroso, where he would lie on a bier surrounded by leopard skins and contemplate death. The rest of the house is no less bizarre: the bathroom has a bathtub hemmed in by hundreds of objects, ranging from Persian ceramic tiles, through Buddhas, to toy animals; and the Sala del Mappamondo, as well as the huge globe for which it is named, contains an Austrian machine-gun and books, including an immense version of The Divine Comedy . Suspended from the ceiling of the auditorium adjoining the house is the biplane that D'Annunzio used in a famous flight over Vienna in World War I.

Gardone's tourist office is at Via Repubblica 39, the cobbled street that runs parallel with the lakefront through the village (April-June Mon-Sat 9am-12.30pm & 4-7pm, closed Thurs afternoon; July-Sept same hours plus Thurs 4-7pm & Sun 9am-12.30pm; Oct-March Mon-Sat 9am-12.30pm & 3-6pm, closed Thurs afternoon; tel & fax 0365.20.347). If you want to stay over in Gardone, there are functional doubles at the very basic Nord , Via Zanardelli 18 (tel 0365.20.707; L60,000-90,000/30.99-46.48), on the main coast road by the most central bus stop. Head down towards the lake and for a bit more you can have a room with bath on the lakeside at the Diana , Lungolago D'Annunzio 30 (tel 0365.21.815; L90,000-120,000/46.48-61.98). Alternatively, walk up the hill on the other side of the main road towards Il Vittoriale until Via Roma meets Via dei Colli and you'll come to the pleasantly located Hohl , Via dei Colli 4 (tel 0365.20.160; L90,000-120,000/46.48-61.98; March-Oct), which has a garden.

There are a couple of places to eat up in the old village around Il Vittoriale, but you're better off going back down the hill to La Terrazza at Via Roma 53 (closed Tues except July & Aug), where you can get good pizzas and snacks, and great views, or, if you want to splash out, to Agli Angeli , 2 Piazetta Guiseppe Garibaldi (no closing day), which has interesting pasta and fish courses. Down by the lakeside, Ciar de Luna at Via Repubblica 34 (closed Tues) is a congenial place open until 3am, with snacks such as bruschetta or gnocchi, full meals in the restaurant section - and Beck's on tap.