Pozzolengo likes to consider itself the gateway to the Morainic hills of lake Garda, a town on the eastern border of the province of Brescia, wedged between Mantua and Verona. To the south of Desenzano del Garda, Pozzolengo is an introduction to the circle of southern hills that gradually give way to the plain.
And the landscape here cannot fail to fascinate and capture one's imagination. It reveals a succession of gently rolling hills with a series of dips and rises, woods and clearings, arid meadows and lakes and springs, pools of water glinting here and there among the tidy rows of vines in the undulating countryside. This is Pozzolengo, where the morainic hills separate the courses of the river Mincio to the east and the Chiese to the west. An intricate tracery of grassy paths and tree-lined roads untiringly follow an up-and-down route through the countryside, by vineyards and fi elds of maize that conceal the horizon in the summer months. On all sides are lush meadows and densely wooded hills.
As you walk, or cycle, or even ride along one of the many unmade-up roads, you may well come upon clumps of willow, alder, pubescent oak and black hornbeam that have sprung up spontaneously in the verdant hills or down by the cane-brakes that border damp fi elds of grass and wild fl owers that change colour with the season. Spring is a symphony of colours, to which are added wild orchids and water-lilies in summer, when it is not a rare sight to glimpse a heron or two, coots and other waterfowl. As you press on through the countryside, you will encounter a few solitary farmhouses perched on a rise or nestling in a dip, some recently converted and renovated to provide bed & breakfast or farmhouse accommodation. In some of them you can purchase a bottle of excellent Lugana, a white wine still made locally using centuries- old methods, excellent as an aperitif or served with fresh fi sh from the lake garda.
Locally- caught fi sh regularly appears on the menus of elegant restaurants and country trattorias (such as the famous Antica Locanda del Contrabbandiere), which serve dishes combining the best of Veronese, Mantuan and Brescian culinary art. The delicious dishes in which this region abounds feature simple tastes and fl avours that follow the rhythm of nature and the course of the seasons. This is Pozzolengo, a hillside town, proud of its natural environment, and its history and traditions that are embodied in the ancient walled castle, where life still pulsates and the remains of the church of San Lorenzo Martire can be admired; in the Parish Church where you can still th hear music played on the 17 century Antegnati organ and see works by Brusasorci and Andrea Celesti; and in the ancient Palazzo Gelmetti, now the town hall, not to mention Palazzo Brigenti and Palasso Albertini. Also well worth a visit is the abbey of San Vigilio, an th interesting example of 12 century rural architecture built by Benedictine monks that stands on the road leading to San Martino della Battaglia, where the echoes of the fierce battles leading up to Italian unifi cation and independence still linger on.
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