Lucone is a small basin in the green hills of the Valtènesi, just west of Lake Garda, and it is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Once there was a little lake here, and during the Bronze Age people built villages of wooden houses raised on piles along its shore. The lake later turned to marsh and peat, which preserved the timbers, pottery and organic remains in waterlogged conditions for thousands of years. What you see today is a gentle, wooded hollow among vineyards and fields, and you need some imagination; the finds are in the archaeological museum in nearby Gavardo.
The countryside around it is some of the most pleasant in Lombardy. The Valtènesi rolls softly down to the lake shore between Salò and Desenzano, with vineyards, olive groves, cypress trees and little villages of warm stone. The local wines are the light red Groppello and the pale pink Chiaretto, perfect for a hot afternoon, and the olive oil from the Garda shore is excellent. Polpenazze del Garda, the nearest village, has a castle on a hill and a few places to eat.
The riding is gentle and very pretty. Narrow roads wind through the hills between villages, with short climbs and dips, views across the lake to Monte Baldo and the Sirmione peninsula, and the occasional tight bend in a village centre. The main lake road, the Gardesana Occidentale, is busy in summer with tourist traffic and cyclists, and its tunnels further north towards Limone are famous but often crowded. In the Valtènesi itself traffic is light outside the high season, though tractors and wine-estate vans are common in the harvest.
For fuel, Prevalle and the larger towns around Salò and Desenzano have plenty of stations. The lake beaches at Manerba and Moniga are a short ride away if you fancy a swim, and the Rocca di Manerba, a headland with ancient ruins, gives one of the best views over the lower lake. Spring and early autumn are ideal, with the light soft and the crowds thinning out; July and August can be hot and hazy, with frequent evening thunderstorms rolling down from the Alps.