It takes over 2 hours to get from Como to Verona by car on a good day. When it is a busy summer day with lots of traffic, what do you do? Stop of at Sirmione for a bite and a stretch of course!
Where are we on our road trip through Northern Italy?
Milan âž” Como âž” SIRMIONE âž” Verona âž” Venice âž” Murano âž” Burano âž” Modena/Hombre âž” Vernazza âž” Pisa âž” Florence âž” San Gimignano âž” Volterra âž” Siena âž” Assisi âž” Civita di Bagnoregio âž” Orvieto âž” Mostri Park âž” Sorrento âž” Pompeii âž” Herculaneum âž” Amalfi âž” Rome âž” Malpensa
Roughly half way to Venice from Como you will find Verona. We will cover Verona in another blog post, but to get to Verona and you need a pitstop, Sirmione ticks all of the boxes. Its not too far off the E70 arterial route, its on the water at the southern end of Lake Garda, and it also has something to see and do there. Lets go!
I had already researched Sirmione as a good place to stop off, but what I didn’t research was the possibility that the place would be swamped with a local festival happening there and that parking would be a nightmare. Note to self, as much as you plan, there is always the latitude to plan some more.
Even though the map shows us that Sirmione wasnt that far from the highway, the roads to it were clogged with traffic moving very slowly. How far before it opens up? Will the traffic go all the way to the lake? Do we wait it out or turn around? We decided to commit and go for it!
Getting to Scaligero Castle (Castello Scaligero di Sirmione) you have to go along a long isthmus, and at the end you will find the castle which is gateway to the ‘old’ part of town that lies after it. There was parking at the end just before you go over the bridge to the castle, but it was full and cars were constantly circling. After 35 mins or so, we decided to go one more time around the loop before we would give up and head back out. Luckily we did and the gods were smiling, and we found a parking spot.
Time to lock up the car and go in!
I had looked up what I thought would be the best place for lunch, for me it was the unofficial best place in Italy for Bruschetta, the ‘Enoteca delle antiche mura‘ on Via Antiche. Was it still there? Was it open? With all of the visitors there, what would be the waiting time?
Rolling up there the gods again shined on us and we were immediately seated. Everyone was starving so we ordered two of the largest sampler plates of bruschetta on the menu. We were not disappointed, have a look at the photos below!
Having been fed, rested, and restroom relieved, we decided to head out and explore the castle.
Scaligero Castle dates back to the 13th century. You would think it would look older and more crumbly but due to its restoration starting after the first world war it looks a lot newer. It is both a fortified fort AND a fortified PORT with a castle like wall around the port area to protect ships docked there.
No wonder it was busy as restorations only completed the year before we arrived and on the year we visited it was the 2019 it was the 22nd most visited attraction in Italy, with 308,459 visitors (as per Wikipedia).
Our pit stop in Sirmione was well worth it!
