The Lake Garda, or Benaco, is the largest Italian lake, with an area of ​​about 370 km², stays between the three regions: Lombardia, Veneto and Trentino-Alto Adige. In Roman times, the lake was known as Benaco, while today it is better known as Lake Garda, name attested since the Middle Ages and of Germanic origin, derived from the homonym small town on the Veronese shore of the lake, which, along with another famous places of the lake, Gardone Riviera, bears witness to the presence Lombard.

The Garda name, already in some documents of the eighth century, is the evolution of the Germanic word warda, meaning “place of guard” or “place of observation”. Already in Roman times, in particular from the first Imperial Age, on the shores where magnificent villas designed as places dedicated to leisure, activity reserved to the ruling classes, because of happy naturalness of the site.

Tourism in the modern conception of the term developed from the late nineteenth century for climate goodness, abundance of water, for variety of products, for grandeur and playfulness of the landscape, courtesy of inhabitants.