Garda Trentino e Valle di Ledro
The Mediterranean brought under the mountains by an angel. We could summarize the magic of the Garda Trentino landscape in this way. Where Italy's largest lake becomes almost a fjord, watched over by Alpine peaks. The small northern stretch of coastline, carved by glaciers millions of years ago, is now a fertile garden where Mediterranean species are at home, from citrus to olive trees, which enjoy a mild and temperate climate here all year round.
Typical products
Trentino Garda is the realm of carne salada: a fresh, tender, lean beef meat made preferably from rump, preserved in brine and flavored with aromatics, served raw thinly sliced or grilled, drizzled with Garda Trentino's excellent DOP extra virgin olive oil, and accompanied by boiled borlotti beans. Garda Trentino oil has an intense flavor, sweet and delicate at the same time-and it also has a record: it is the northernmost oil produced in Europe. Among vegetables, typical of the area is the broccoli of Torbole. Alto Garda and Ledro are lands of clear-water lakes and streams, and offer sardines, carp, rainbow and salmon trout, perch, tench, pike and whitefish. On the hills overlooking Lake Garda, below the ridges of the Ledro Alps, the small and tasty local chesnuts lare grown, a delicious fruit to be enjoyed in front of a fireplace while waiting for winter.
Encounter between lakes and mountains
In the tourist imagination, Alto Garda and Ledro Valley represent one of Trentino's most internationally established districts and one of the most breathtaking postcard landscapes, capable of enchanting poets, writers and travelers from antiquity to the nineteenth-century Grand Tour era to today's more discerning, outdoor-oriented tourism. Climbing from the great Garda to the picturesque Lake Ledro, one discovers how astonishing nature is, and in just a few kilometers of tunnels it presents the wonder of the Mediterranean world plunging into the Alpine environment. The blue of Garda dazzles among the rocky peaks and olive groves. The Ledro Valley, suspended like an arched bridge between Garda and the Valle del Chiese, has a varied economy, ranging from tourism to handicrafts to activities characteristic of a pre-Alpine valley, such as woodworking.