Where is info on Lake Garda in the 2011 guidebook?

Robyn, I don't believe there's any information at all on Lake Garda in Rick's books. I have the 2010 edition, and couldn't find any mention of Lake Garda or Sirmione. Your best bet for information will probably be Trip Advisor or the HelpLine.

The RS books aren't intended to be comprehensive. You'll have to turn to other resources for that. Best wishes.

Lake Garda has a tourism website that's not bad. I had the same problem looking for info. Even Rick's book on Venice and the Veneto doesn't mention it. There's a bit about it in the Eyewitness Guide to Venice. We're headed for Sirmione in September, so we'll see if I made a good choice. Tripadvisor has a Sirmione forum, but it's not very active. I did get some good information from it.

Hi Robyn. I had the same problem so I bought a Lonely Planet book called 'The Italian Lakes' which has good information on Garda & the others. I also purchased two great e-books. The first is called 'Riva del Garda Travel Guide' by Offbeat Guides; it's strictly devoted to Lake Garda. The second is called 'Lake Como, Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiore, Lake Garda: the Italian Lakes' by Catherine Richards. Both e-books weren't very expensive and if you don't have an e-reader, you can read them on your computer as well. Between these 3 sources, I gained a lot of information.

out of curiosity I just used http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/39868/bget-answers-to-your-questions--searching-ricks-archivesb.html I got hundreds of hits for posts on this Board about Lake Garda.

Thanks so much for the replies! I'll check the archive link and see what others had to say. I just thought I was missing something because there IS a section on "The Lakes", which covers Como, Maggiore, and Lugano; I guess Garda is too far away to be covered.
Anyway, thanks, and I'll do some more research!

Robyn, I checked the Kindle store on Amazon, and there are at least two Guides covering The Italian Lakes. If you have a Reader, that would probably be a less expensive option than a paper copy. The DK Eyewitness Guide looked good, but the Hunter Travel Guide looked fairly comprehensive also. Lonely Planet also offers downloads of individual chapters of their Italian Lakes book in PDF format. The chapters are currently "on sale" for $3.46 each (a bargain!). Cheers!

Thanks, Ken
I'll check it out!

You bought a guidebook that doesn't cover your destination? Talk about Rick Steves devotion. He covers about 5% of Italy. Look on Amazon for other resources on the lakes region.

Well, obviously, Rick can't cover all of everything in any given country. I just thought since The Lakes region was in there that Lake Garda would be part of that. But I've been on other sites, etc, reading more on The Lakes region and Lake Garda ISN'T part of it. It was an assumption on my part.

We used the book"Italian Lakes and Mountains" as our starting point for planning a visit to Lago di Garda. We rented a car at Venice airport and drove there to spend 3 nights is Malcesine. We loved it there.

www.lagodigarda.it

Thanks for the info, Marko and Lola! I will check those out as well!

Hi Robyn Check out lakegardaexclusively.com Has different tourist info for areas and towns around the lake. October last year, a friend and i went to the wine festival in bardolino. Was fabulous, eating and drinking right on the lake. Rented car in Venice and drove to lago de garda, spent night at hotel nettuno. The festival is usually end of september first of october. We attended on sunday, which had fireworks on the lake, lots of bardolino wine, food, souvenirs, shops, restaurants, people. Bring enough euros in small denominations and have a great time.
Feel free to PM me.

thanks for all the tips!
I am OCD-researching now! I found more info on the grape and wine festival in Bardolino as well which looks very interesting! =-D