Lake Garda's southern shore is a landscape made by ice. At the end of the last glaciation a huge tongue of ice pushed out of the Alps and left behind a ring of moraine hills, curved like an amphitheatre, with the lake in the middle and the Po plain beyond. The shallow bay near Sirmione, where the lake meets the low land, was settled very early, and Lugana Vecchia is one of the prehistoric pile-dwelling sites around the Alps that UNESCO has grouped together as a World Heritage Site. Villages of timber houses on stilts stood in the shallows or on the shore here in the Bronze Age, and the wet ground preserved wood, textiles and tools that would have rotted elsewhere.
Be honest about what you will see: there is almost nothing visible, because the remains lie under water or under the mud of the lake shore, and the archaeology is to be understood rather than looked at. The Lugana area is also the name of a famous white wine, made from the Turbiana grape on the pale clay soils behind the shore, with a fresh, mineral taste that goes well with lake fish. Cellars around Sirmione, Peschiera and Desenzano open for tastings, and the vineyards in autumn turn a rich gold.
Riding around the southern lake is easy and pleasant. The roads are flat or gently rolling, well surfaced and signed, and the views over the water are good. Traffic, however, is thick in summer, particularly at weekends, with tourists and queues for Sirmione, which is reached by a narrow causeway to a long peninsula with a medieval castle, the Scaligero fortress. Go early in the morning or in the shoulder seasons, April to June or September and October, to avoid the crush. Further inland, the moraine hills offer winding lanes through vineyards and olive groves.
The history of the area goes well beyond prehistory. Nearby San Martino della Battaglia was the scene of a bloody fight in 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence, fought on the same day as the battle of Solferino, and a tall memorial tower stands on the ridge. Sirmione, with nearly seven thousand people, has fuel stations on the approach roads, and Peschiera and Desenzano have more. Eat risotto with perch or a plate of lake sardines, and drink a glass of local Lugana in the shade of a vine.