Where Garda narrows between the mountains, Riva was for centuries the Habsburg empire's southern port: Mitteleuropean elegance survives in its palaces, and Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka came to take cures at the von Hartungen sanatorium. The Rocca stands in the water with its museum; the Bastione, reached by panoramic cable car, grants the sweeping view over lake and olive groves.
The punctual afternoon wind — the Ora — made Riva and Torbole a European capital of sailing and windsurfing; the crags around are a climbing eldorado. Sport, Habsburgs and olive trees: Trentino's Garda is another story, and it starts here.
Near Riva del Garda
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
