Driving and parking around Italian lakes

[chillichutneysarnie]

This summer DH and I are planning to drive through the Alps and on to the Italian lakes for our holiday. We'd base ourselves in one place but drive around for day trips, does anyone know if this is going to be a pleasure or a nightmare? What about parking, is it generally plentiful and not too expensive? I expect we'll stay near Lake Garda. Thanks in advance!

It’s doable but not pleasant. Traffic around Lake Garda is very heavy (we stayed on the west side near Salo and it was over an hour drive to the water/amusement parks on the other side due to traffic) and the motorways are not for the faint hearted. That being said I wouldn’t let it put you off. There are also lots of ferries running to locations around the lake if you feel like taking a break from driving.

Also if you are driving through the alps to Lake Garda try to avoid Saturdays / Sundays in the summer as the entire population of Germany seems to be driving south for their holidays. We drove from Innsbruck to Lake Garda and what should have been a 4 hour drive per google maps took 7.5 hours of bumper to bumper gridlock. Not fun with tired and hungry small kids.

Thanks very much for the info! Hmm I'll have a think about that, perhaps we'll do the drive on weekdays and park the car up when we get there.