The ‘Bassa via del Garda’ trail which could be translated as ‘Lake Garda’s lower road’ has developed thanks to the ‘High Garda Park’ (Parco alto Garda Bresciano) and was realized in 1998 thanks to the Forest Regional Agency. This trail develops on the western coast of lake Garda starting from Salò and reaches the last town of the Brescia province, Limone sul Garda, over a distance of 74 km. The trail has been dedicated to Roberto Montagnoli , native of the town of Tignale, who loved this mountain area and founded the publishing house Grafo and the Magazine AB (Brescian Atlas) in Brescia with the purpose of publishing the history, legend and territory of the High Garda Park of the Brescian lake shore. The publishing house Grafo has dedicated more than 30 years of publications merely on the culture of the towns and little villages of this western part of lake Garda with its rural and mountain area.
Walking this trail you will come across a variety of vegetation from the Mediterranean species such as oleander, palms and agaves of the lake shores and, while moving higher up the hills, to olive trees, ilex woods, alpine trees such as birches and beeches, red and black pines. This together with the snowy mountain peaks of the Monte Baldo on the other, Venetian, side of the lake, has an incredible, contrasting and unrepeatable effect. There is a wonderful variety of smells from the Calycanthus in winter times, Jasmin and orange blossom in spring, oleans fragrance’s perfume in the autumn. Striking are the colors of cyclamen that cover the woods like carpets in summer and autumn. So from the southern part of the lake where the spaces are wider, open, almost marine-like, we walk north, from smooth hills to high cliffs, we climb mountains looking down through clefts where, in the northern part, the lake gets narrower and seem more and more like a fiord where among the cliffs we see cypresses emerging through the rocks.
The trail goes along an ancient cabled path, narrow tracks or roads surrounded by high walls of the lemon groves in tranquil little villages, solitary churches and hermitages. This becomes not only a walk through space but also across time, it is a walk back into history in surroundings shut away from cars and city chaos.
The different stages of this track are normally for walkers to go from one town to the other over a distance of between 15 to 20 km. The height varies from 65 meters above sea level of the lake shore to the highest point to reach 2000 meters. The decision to organize a race on 5-6th of April along this trail is an attempt to make this area better known to athletes and hopefully to a larger public .
At the voice TRAIL you will find a ROAD BOOK that will lead you in detail across the different sections of the path. It is up to you how you decide to cross it, we only hope you will enjoy this path and that this race is going to be successful as an event that you would not want to miss in the future.
FRANCO GHITTI
(President of the BVG high Garda lake committee)