Italy holidays: the Lake Garda hotel you must book this spring
Damien Gabet finds silence and serenity at Italy’s Lake Garda by checking into the new-ish Cape of Senses hotel
I don’t like city breaks. The transactional slapdash, the exhaustion dressed as fun, the quiet feeling that you’re incrementally ruining locals’ lives. And how on earth are you supposed to enjoy a long weekend in a place that’s taken a day to get to and a day to return from?
With such little time, and such overwhelm, we are lured in by the comfort of cliché: the Aperol selfie, the gelato queue. To feel a city, you need to be in it for enough time to self-justify doing nothing. That’s when it shows you a little leg and you can say, confidently, that you have known the place. Long weekends, then, should be spent elsewhere.
THE DESTINATION
Lake Garda, for example. Where the views are of such dewy-eyed splendour that you’ll find a deep, dignified contentment in simply being an inconsequential dot on a backdrop of prealpine hills, lemon groves and liquid reflection.
My beloved and I hired an EV in Verona (hard swerve the Romeo & Juliet balcony) and drove up to the new-ish Cape of Senses hotel. It sits on an erstwhile olive grove above the lake, looking out towards the crumpled peaks on the northern horizon.
The olives were moved forward to make space for the hotel, so they now frame the terraces. The morning after we arrived, I walked through them, taking 90 seconds away from my phone, to watch the lake wake up under a low, milky mist. The effect was faintly mythic, as if we were cloud people now.
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The fact that the hotel is unconsciously channeling a sort of retro-future-space-station aesthetic strengthens that sense of levitation. Blonde wood and neutral stone, with mid-century bits and floor-to-ceiling glass. Denis Villeneuve vibes. Demure enough that you’re almost prompted to look away. To look out.
At times, the place felt almost eerily serene. Guests moved around in silence, drifting between sauna and lounger with the focused calm of people who have been accepted into a wellness cult. I know I’m missing the point, but would it kill them to say hello? I half expected someone to start reciting lines from Gattaca.
FOOD, DRINK & RELAXATION
Lunch, fortunately, restores a sense of civility. Service is delivered with that particular Italian sprezzatura: handsome waiters who’d invite a mistake just to charm you back to happiness. First, small plates. The burrata came with tomatoes so vivid they’d fit on a Victoire de Castellane ring. Then the five-star carbonara. The starbonara. Best I’ve ever had. “How?!”
There’s a 2,000sqm spa housing three saunas and a treatment area that uses cosmetics derived, we were told, from ‘cold-extracted herbs’. While I don’t care about that, I attended an intense aufguss session that left an impression.
Our harem-pant sauna master swayed in front us like Kate Bush, elegantly twizzling a towel through the heat, directing tangerine and rosemary vapour into our faces. Sauna can be boring. This was not. Outside, the pool was pleasantly unheated and we had it to ourselves.
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If you want movement, the concierge arranges it quietly: boat trips across the lake, olive oil tastings, vineyard visits. We almost didn’t bother, but the lure of a well-dressed man talking about his grapes was enough to get us back in the EV. On our final day at Lake Garda, we tried our best to do FA. Not even talking. Suddenly I understood the other guests’ steadfast aloofness.
As I silently sipped a martini made dirty from the olives in that grove, I distinctly remember thinking, “I’ve just had my first creative thought in months.” It’s a shame we must pay this much to be reacquainted with ourselves. But when that beautiful idea finally lands, it’ll feel worth it. And you won’t find that on a city break.
Visit Lake Garda yourself
Rooms at the Cape of Senses start from around £600; go to capeofsenses.com