The Vittoriale degli Italiani - Gabriele d'Annunzio's House Museum - Gardone Riviera
Eats&Travels's guide to staying on Lake Garda and visiting the Vittoriale degli Italiani: http://www.eatsandtravels.it/it/ilvit...
During a Lake Garda itinerary, the Eats&Travels team couldn't miss a stop in Gardone Riviera, in the province of Brescia, to visit Gabriele d'Annunzio's House Museum, the Vittoriale degli Italiani.
Gabriele d'Annunzio spent the last years of his life here, where he died in 1938.
The Vittoriale Park is very large and requires some time to explore. Among the main points of interest is the Mausoleum, where d'Annunzio is buried. It's a truly evocative place, and you can climb to the highest point for a breathtaking view of Lake Garda.
Beneath the keep hill in the park stands the military ship Puglia, perhaps the Vittoriale's most evocative monument, donated to d'Annunzio by the Italian Navy in 1923.
Also in 1923, the MAS 96 arrived at the Vittoriale. The acronym MAS stands for anti-submarine motorboat, but d'Annunzio added Memento Audere Semper, meaning "always remember to dare." Just five years earlier, in 1918, the soldier-poet had completed a heroic military raid in Croatia aboard the MAS 96, restoring hope to Italy a few months after the defeat at Caporetto.
The amphitheater overlooking the lake, called "Parlaggio" by d'Annunzio, is remarkable. It holds approximately 1,500 spectators and was built to replicate the ancient structure of the Greek amphitheater.
The entire park is interesting and worth a few hours to explore, but we were curious to enter Gabriele d'Annunzio's house, wander through his rooms, among his books and objects.
The dim light, almost darkness, is astonishing—d'Annunzio shunned the light due to an eye problem. You have to get used to it to begin to see the details. The impressive quantity of books is astonishing, in practically every room, with walls lined with bookcases. Then there's the music room with two pianos, the waiting room where even Benito Mussolini waited, the blue bathroom, the dining room with the tortoise that died of indigestion in the garden, placed as a warning to guests not to eat too much, and the room with the One-Handed Man's writing desk, dedicated to epistolary writing, to demonstrate that Gabriele d'Annunzio didn't intend to respond to everyone.
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