Book Lazise attraction tickets

Lazise sits on the eastern shore of Lake Garda in the Veneto region, a small medieval town whose compact historic centre has changed remarkably little since the Scaligeri lords of Verona fortified it in the fourteenth century. The old walls still run almost intact along the waterfront, enclosing a harbour where fishing boats and pleasure craft share the same stone quays they have occupied for centuries. It is one of the quieter settlements on a lake that attracts millions of visitors each year, and that relative calm is a large part of its appeal.

The town's Venetian customs house, the Dogana Veneta, stands at the harbour's edge as a reminder that Lazise was once an important trading post under the Republic of Venice. The church of San Nicolò, partly Romanesque, partly frescoed in later centuries, sits close by, and the Scaligeri castle anchors the northern end of the old walls. These three landmarks within a few minutes' walk of each other give the town a density of history that belies its modest size. Visitors who arrive expecting a resort and find instead a functioning medieval settlement tend to leave rather more impressed than they anticipated.