Garda+lake

GARDA LAKE Lake Garda is the largest lake in Italy. It is located in Northern Italy It is in an alpine region and was formed by glaciers at the end of the last ice age. The lake and its shoreline are divided between the provinces of Verona (to the south-east), Brescia (south-west), and Trento (north). The northern part of the lake is narrower, surrounded by mountains. The shape is that typical of a moraina valley, probably having been formed under the action of a Paleolithic glacier. Although traces of the glacier action are evident today, in more recent years it has been hypothesized that the glacier occupied an already existing depression, created by stream erosion from 5 to 6 million years ago. The lake has five islands, the largest one is Isola del Garda. The main tributary is the Sarca river, while the only emissary is the Mincio River. Wildlife include the Salmo carpio, a species of salmon living exclusively in the Garda.

Desenzano Between the first and the second century AD the lake shores were chosen as the country seat of many well-to-do Romans, as evidenced by the villa discovered in Desenzano in 1921 exactly on the Via Emilia, the ancient road which joined Brescia to Verona. During the Longobard period Desenzano was part of a district which covered the southern shores of the lake and the Mantuan countryside.The Pieve was one of the first Christian churches in the area. At first it was under the authority of Verona, then, in 1192, it passed within the civil jurisdiction of Brescia, and finally it became a feudal possession of the Confalonieri family in 1220. Around 1170 Niceta spread the Cathar heresy in the surroundings: Sirmione and Desenzano, where the heresy had also a Cathar theologian and bishop, became centres of worship till the intervention of the Inquisition in 1276. In 1859 Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II fought against the Austro-Hungarian forces at San Martino and Solferino. The carnage during the battle gave birth to Henry Dunant’s Red Cross whose unique museum is a few kilometres from Desenzano in Castiglione delle Stiviere. The tragic event turned Desenzano into a huge hospital. Both in the First and in the Second World War, Desenzano suffered heavy air raids, which destroyed, in the latter one, the railway viaduct built in 1852. The archeological museum is close to the lake, exactly where in the past stood the original cloister of S. Maria de Senioribus. The museum is dedicated to Giovanni Rambotti, the scholar who discovered the prehistoric settlement of the ‘Polada culture’ (2000 BC). The ruins of the Roman Villa - dating back to different periods between the end of the Republican Age (I century BC) and the end of the Imperial Age (V century AD) - extend for about a hectare and represent the most important example in Northern Italy of a large, late-Roman Villa. It is doubtless an elaborate, east-facing building of large extent, whose residential parts alternate with rustic structures. The large villa overlooked the lake and the lake must have been the decisive element in the layout of the various rooms. The Roman Age came to an end with the invasion of German and oriental peoples who also destroyed the villa. The castle was built on the foundation of quadrangular Roman castrum sometime during the 10th century to reduce the plunder and devastation caused by a new race of barbarians: the Hungarians. It is situated on the hill that dominates the harbour and a large part of the surrounding area. The inside of building was made up of a proper small village with its roads, the square, the tower and the church dedicated to S. Ambrogio. What remains of the original defensive structure is only the rampart and a building used as military barracks constructed in 1883.

Limone sul Garda The name for the village comes from the latin word "Limen", which means border. Surrounded by mountains and water the economic was based on fishing, olives and lemons. Then in 1932 the Gardesana Occidentale was completed and at last isolation came to an end. After the worldwars tourism started. The inhabitants started to transform the little fishing village into a tourist resort, which is now one of the most important ones at Lake Garda. Limone became famous in 1979 when the APOLIPOPROTEIN A-1 MILANO was discovered. This protein which is in the blood of the people born in Limone quickly removes the fat from the arteries and leads it to the lever which in the end eliminates. This protein is efficacious against arteriosclerosis and infarct.