Apartments in Lake Garda

Table of Contents

• At a glance: What should you know about renting an apartment in Lake Garda?
• Apartments in Lake Garda: find your perfect retreat
• Exploring Lake Garda: our top recommendations
• Activities: What are the top things to do and see in Lake Garda?

• Self-catering by the water: Most apartments come with a full kitchen, a balcony or terrace and parking, so you can shop at the markets and eat at home with a lake view.
• Old town or lakeside residence: Choose a flat in a historic centre for walkable evenings, or a residence with a shared pool for slower family days.
• Pick your shore: Sirmione and Bardolino suit first-timers, Riva del Garda and Malcesine suit walkers, sailors and windsurfers.
• Guests rate them highly: Our best-reviewed Lake Garda apartments score 10.0, with hosts praised for parking, lake views and easy self check-in.
• Plenty to fill a week: Monte Baldo, Gardaland, the Ponale path, olive groves and lemon houses are all within an easy drive or ferry ride.

Apartments around Lago di Garda fall into two easy camps: flats in the old towns, a few steps from the promenade and the bakery, and lakeside residences on the edge of town with gardens, parking and a shared pool. Studios suit couples, while two-bedroom flats work well for families who want the space that villas and villas with pool or a pitch at campsites would otherwise give them. Almost all are self-catering. Look out for these features when you compare:

• A proper kitchen with an oven, hob and washing machine
• A balcony or terrace facing the water or Monte Baldo
• Private parking, which is priceless in Sirmione and Malcesine
• Air conditioning for July and August

Between them, these details decide whether a week feels relaxed or logistical.

What are the best areas to stay in Lake Garda?

Sirmione is the easiest base for a first apartment stay, with the thermal baths, the Scaligero castle and boats leaving from the centre; the wider Lake Garda holiday lettings map covers every shore. The table below details regions for specific interests:

What do our guests say?

Guests staying in Lake Garda apartments consistently praise the same things: a terrace for breakfast, a kitchen big enough to cook a proper dinner, and somewhere to leave the car. Ratings of 9.5+ are common along both shores, and the very best flats reach 9.9+, with hosts singled out for flexible check-in and honest tips about ferries, markets and quiet beaches.

Here are our top-rated apartments from the past year:

1. Perla Azzurra mit Seezugang - 9.9+: A five-person flat in Toscolano-Maderno with a garden, lake view and direct lake access for lazy swimming mornings.
2. Wohnung 100 Meter Vom Gardasee - 9.9+: One hundred metres from the water in Torri del Benaco, with a shared pool, parking and air conditioning.
3. Comfort One-Bedroom Apartment (Bv1) - 9.9+: A quiet one-bedroom in Riva del Garda with a balcony, mountain views and parking for the hire car.

Lake Garda stretches from the Alpine cliffs of Riva del Garda down to the olive groves, vineyards and low headlands of Sirmione and Peschiera.

🥗Where to eat in Lake Garda?

According to Google Maps data and reviews, Integrale Breakfast & Restaurant is the best rated restaurant in Lake Garda. Below is a table showing the top 5 highly-rated restaurants hand-picked by our travel experts.

⭐Our guests' recommendation: Our guest traveller Emma recommends the Trattoria Antica Contrada in Lake Garda: a short walk from her Sirmione flat, it is where she ate on the two evenings she did not fancy cooking.

1. Walk out to Sirmione's Roman ruins
2. Ride the cable car up Monte Baldo
3. Shop the weekly markets
4. Cycle the Bardolino wine roads
5. Take the ferry across the lake
6. Spend a day at Gardaland
7. Follow the Ponale path above Riva

1. Walk out to Sirmione's Roman ruins

   The Grotte di Catullo sit at the very tip of the Sirmione peninsula, a Roman villa spread across olive terraces with the lake on three sides. Go early, before the day-trippers arrive, and you will have the mosaics and the shoreline path largely to yourself. On the way back, the Scaligero castle and its moat make an easy second stop, and the lidos below are perfect for a swim before lunch back at the apartment.

2. Ride the cable car up Monte Baldo

   From Malcesine, a rotating cable car climbs to 1,760 metres in about ten minutes, swapping lemon trees for alpine meadows. At the top there are gentle ridge walks with the whole lake below, paragliders launching overhead and, in early summer, wildflowers everywhere. Families can walk one short loop and ride back down; keener walkers can descend on foot. The wider mountain trails continue north towards hiking in the Dolomites.

3. Shop the weekly markets

   Self-catering is half the pleasure of an apartment here. Each town has its market day, and the stalls in Desenzano del Garda and Bardolino are the ones to plan around: lake fish, local olive oil, peaches, tomatoes and enormous rounds of Grana Padano. Buy the day's dinner, add a bottle of Lugana or Bardolino Chiaretto, and cook it on the terrace as the light goes pink over the water.

4. Cycle the Bardolino wine roads

   Behind Bardolino and Lazise the land rises into gentle moraine hills covered in vines and olive groves. A hire bike or e-bike gets you along quiet lanes between cellars, many of which run short tastings without a booking. The flat lakeside path linking Lazise, Bardolino and Garda is easy enough with children, and there are shady picnic spots and small pebble beaches to stop at on the way home.

5. Take the ferry across the lake

   Public ferries link almost every town on the lake, and a day ticket turns them into the cheapest sightseeing on offer. Crossing from Malcesine to Limone sul Garda takes half an hour and completely changes the view: cliffs, lemon houses and villages stacked above the water. Leave the car at the apartment, take a picnic, and hop off wherever the harbour looks tempting.

6. Spend a day at Gardaland

   Italy's best-known theme park sits just outside Peschiera del Garda, an easy drive or short train ride from most southern-shore flats. There are rides for small children as well as bigger rollercoasters, plus an aquarium next door for a slower afternoon. Arriving at opening time and heading anticlockwise usually keeps the queues down, and being able to go back to your own kitchen afterwards saves both money and a meltdown.

7. Follow the Ponale path above Riva

   The old Ponale road was carved into the cliff above Riva del Garda and is now a walking and cycling route with some of the finest views on the lake. It climbs steadily through tunnels and galleries towards Valle di Ledro, with the water shining far below. An hour up and an hour back is enough for most people, and a gelato on Riva's waterfront afterwards is close to compulsory.