When life gives you lemons…

Lake Garda is fantastic for little day trips as the lake is dotted with tiny little towns along its shores. The closest town to Malcesine across the lake is little Limone sul Garda, whose lights twinkle a wave to Malcesine each night through the darkness.

The last time we visited Malcesine, we were curious about the little town we had seen across the way and so we tried to get closer when we rented a boat for an hour. However, having only rented the boat for an hour and not really having a game plan of where to go, we didn’t quite reach the shores in time to see what was going on there.

This time, upon the advice of our local air bnb host, we took the €9 return ferry to Limone for a little mid day adventure. There was market on that day so we thought it was the perfect day to go.

So we took the 20min ferry over and soaked in the views of Monte Baldo on the way. Upon arriving on the shores of Limone, I was truly impressed with what we saw. Nestled into the Garda mountains was this tiny, cute village with beautiful, lush, bright flowers dressing every balcony you could see. There were colourful buildings and a tiny little marina for boats to dock as well.

We disembarked from the ferry and took to the winding streets to discover little Limone. Our first stop was a little Italian boutique. Now having lived in Doha for a year and not gone shopping in the past 10 months I was feeling a little bummed out that I also wasn’t finding much to purchase in London, despite having my plastic cards ready to go. So we popped into Oscar s Beni for some retail therapy for me. I really enjoyed browsing through the Italian boutiques as it seemed like they had just the right amount of clothing in a store and a lot of unique pieces. Anyway, I was on the hunt for a white day dress and a staple LBD. My husband’s natural eye for clean lines with fashion, spotted one white day dress and so I tried it on. The woman at the shop was very helpful and was one of those people that could tell your size and what looked good on you just by looking at you. The first dress wasn’t fabulous but the woman at the shop suggested another that I absolutely fell in love with. So with that and the LBD ,which was also a perfect fit ,(rare when I go shopping) I bought the two and felt quite pleased with my new Italian threads.

From there we walked around the streets and found a restaurant along the lakeshore to eat lunch. Lunch was nothing spectacular but the people were nice and the view was stunning. One thing you’ll notice when you visit Lake Garda is everyone has a dog there. So as we sat having our lunch we watched the owners walk their dogs by in the sweltering heat.

After lunch we tried to head over to the market, only to find, to my slight disappointment that it was shutting down. It was only about 2pm at this point. However we also realised that it was more of a clothes market than a produce, handmade product type market so in the end I didn’t feel like we missed much.

We continued meandering through the streets. Limone is quite hilly but you get these sneaky little glimpses of the lake through small passageways as you walk through the town. We didn’t walk too far out or up for that matter but it definitely looked like there was more to see up and around.

There were also these strange structures marking the shores of the lake on the right side as you come in towards the town. I didn’t know what they were as some structures that were currently existing seemed to use the same pillars to this day. Turns out they were the old lemon houses used to protect the lemon trees from frost in the winter. To find out more about Limone’s history you can click here to read more.

We left before the last ferry came to Limone but it would have been nicer to see more of the town, preferably with better walking shoes on to hike up the pathways.

Limone is a definite day-tripping must whilst visiting Lake Garda.