At the tip of Sirmione’s peninsula, on land that juts into Lake Garda like a thumb, the ruins of Italy’s largest known Roman villa spread across an old olive grove for nearly 20,000 square meters.
Built between the late 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, the complex is named for the poet Catullus, who called Sirmione the jewel of all islands and peninsulas, though the villa itself likely rose after his death and belonged to someone else entirely. Walk the surviving walls and the cryptoporticus, the vaulted underground gallery that kept the villa cool, and climb to the northern terrace for a view down the lake that has drawn visitors since the Romans built it for exactly that purpose. An on-site museum, opened in 1999, displays finds from here and elsewhere around Sirmione.
