LAKESIDE ROMANCES : GRAND HOTEL FASANO, Lake Garda, Italy : Living It Up at Two European Luxury Hotels, Where Waters Lap at Shorelines, the Surroundings Are Intoxicating and the Dining Is Positively Sinful

Four years ago, my wife, Miriam, spotted the picture in a magazine--a stately grand hotel, sitting in a park, overlooking a blue lake and beckoning us to drop everything and come as soon as possible. As a further inducement, it was in Italy, in a calm and secluded part of the country with spectacular cliffs that descend into the lake, terraced lemon groves and a coastline that immediately suggested leisurely lunches over pasta, coffee after sunrise, drinks before sunset and quiet walks at anytime.

The picture was promptly placed in Miriam’s “Mediterranean” file, and whenever the idea of a vacation in Italy crept into our conversation (which seemed daily), the focus turned to that lakeside hotel. “What do we really know about this?” I asked, echoing the kind of question raised whenever a daughter was dating yet another unknown.

What Miriam knew was that the name of the place was the Grand Hotel Fasano, an old Hapsburg hunting lodge that stretched along Lake Garda, the largest of the Lombardy lakes (which includes Lake Como) in northwestern Italy. And what she expected to find was peace and quiet, excellent food and service, and a perfect setting.

The more we talked, the more we envisioned ourselves ensconced on the veranda where aristocrats used to play. We have always been attracted automatically to hotels called “Grand” anyway; we had once been to the southern tip of the lake and wondered about the rest; we were told of perfect spring and summer weather, of the nearby bizarre estate of the eccentric Italian writer, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and of the vineyards that produced white Lugana wine that hated to travel.

We also liked the size of the hotel--just 75 rooms--and the location, within striking distance, to the south and east, of the better-known towns of Verona, Padua and Mantua and, to the west, the lovely hill town of Bergamo. Milan’s international airport is just 80 miles away. And the geography looked attractive: a lake 30 miles long and from three to 10 miles wide, extending from the Alps in the north to fertile plains in the south.

So, in the spring of last year, the time finally came for Lake Garda and the Grand Hotel Fasano.

We planned a hectic trip that would wind up at our quiet lakeside refuge. First, we spent a week in Venice, followed by an overnight visit just north in Treviso, a lovely walled city seldom toured by Americans. While there, we took a day’s drive to nearby villas that are among the triumphs of the great 16th-Century architect Andrea Palladio, who designed more than 20 villas in the Veneto region, many along canals to ease the access for wealthy Venetian owners. We focused on two, La Malcontenta and Barbaro, which gave us a wonderful sense of Palladio’s genius.

On the day of our drive to the Grand Hotel Fasano, we stopped for lunch en route at Sirmione, a spa resort at the bottom of Lake Garda known for its unique location on a narrow peninsula and a 13th-Century moated castle that sits on its own tiny island. This was the part we had visited before, and it was much as we remembered, a lovely city clogged with day-trippers from landlocked industrial areas of Italy who were in search of an hour or two on an excursion boat.

Sirmione is prepared for the hordes with dozens of restaurants, and we simply chose one at random near the water so we could watch the tourists and their ice cream cones drift by. After a salad and spaghetti with oil and garlic and a sprinkling of peperoncini (red pepper) , ice cream seemed like a good idea. It also quickly seemed like a good idea to leave the crowds and head for a bit of tranquillity. That was soon at hand as we drove west through Desenzano del Garda and turned north along the western side of the lake. We headed for Gardone Riviera, the site of another and larger “Grand,” a 180-room hotel that we passed on the way to our destination in a suburb about a mile north.

As we pulled off the road and into the Grand Hotel Fasano’s dirt driveway, it was clear that our only mistake in coming here was to have waited so long. The hotel is painted, appropriately, the color of lemons, and stands between the hills and the lake, amid gardens and cypresses, suggesting a colorful history. The Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, who built the place as a hunting lodge in 1880, knew a good location when he saw one. And, though it was converted into a hotel at the turn of the century, there was no doubt this was a place fit for emperors and others in that league.

While the bellman unloaded our luggage, we were struck by an added touch that weekend: Two dozen Ferraris, driven there by their German owners, who had apparently decided to spend a few days together cleaning engines, polishing door handles, wiping dashboards and impressing each other.

Inspired, I washed the windshield of our rented Alfa Romeo.

We reached our room on the third floor, nicely furnished with a mixture of old and new, including an attractive armoire. We stepped through French doors onto a marble balcony and gazed at the lake, the tour boats, the ducks, the fountain and the Ferraris below. As the sun left us, and the breezes came, we congratulated ourselves as Miriam pulled out the old photograph: We had not been misled.

That night, after we walked to dinner through the reception rooms--with their fresh flowers, antique tables, wall-to-wall velvet, baroque paintings and lace curtains--we soon discovered that the Ferrari folks not only cleaned cars very well, but they also ate very well.

As guests on “half pensione” (room plus breakfast and dinner), we had a remarkable dinner that included shrimp ( Sformato di Gamberi ), pasta ( Tortelloni Verdi e Gialli ), salmon trout ( Suprema di Trota Salmonata) , palate-cleansing sorbet ( Sorbetto di Mele Verdi ), slices of beef ( Tagliata di Angus ) and, as a closer, fresh fruit with strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream ( Composizione di Fruta Fresca su Salsa di Fragole con Gelato all Vaniglia) . Afterward, we wandered out to meet Luciano, our friendly waiter on the terrace who soon discovered that he had encountered a couple who never met a local olive or a glass of the local white that they didn’t like.

The price for all this luxury, by Italian standards, was relatively reasonable. In high season (July 1 to Sept. 15) the half-pensione rate runs about $235 per couple; in spring (we visited in May) and fall, the rate falls to about $200 a couple. In contrast, the Villa d’Este, one of the more famous hotels on Lake Como to the west, runs $400 or more a night and includes breakfast only. And in the major cities of Italy, one often encounters hotel rooms for $200, excluding meals.

In the dining room on the three evenings of our visit were the owners of the hotel, members of the Mayr family who bought it in 1959 and nurtured it. Olliver, a son whose mother is German and whose father was Austrian, told us of the hotel’s history as a hunting lodge for the Austrian aristocrats. And, indeed, the atmosphere, like many in the Lombardy lakes region, is central European, with many of the guests coming from Germany and other points north, rather than from the United States and Italy itself.

As the hotel owners told it, the keepers of the lodge in those early days hatched and raised pheasants to populate the woods where royal parties hunted (the name Fasano derives from Fasan, the German word for pheasant). When the lodge was converted to a hotel, it remained a symbol of luxury, keeping its original structure and park.

The next morning, after a buffet breakfast on the veranda, we began to explore the majestic western shoreline of Lake Garda. Our goal was to enjoy the vistas, but also to stop and eat in as many places as possible before dinner. Fortunately, hunger attacked a few miles up the road in Gargnano, one of the small ancient towns along the way. Gargnano has an abundance of lemon and olive groves, a 16th-Century town hall, a palazzo featuring such old masters as Correggio and Canaletto, and a good supply of lovely villas.

The choice for lunch was a small pizza place with a few tables set on a deck on the water. It was yet another one of those restaurant encounters in Italy that seem designed to persuade the traveler how difficult it is to get a bad meal in this country no matter the size of the place or the price of the food. If the place had a name, we missed it. We almost missed the price of the lunch, a salad, pasta and a pizza, which came to about $20 for two, with coffee and a glass of wine.

A short walk away is the more famous--and more expensive--La Tortuga Ristorante, where a husband and wife team, the Filippinis, run a lovely, small, indoor restaurant of frilled lamps, an intriguing collection of Grappa bottles and a menu that changes daily.

Soon, strolling around the small, quiet marina, we encountered one of the locals whose comments were no surprise.

“Are you tourists?” he asked. “I want to tell you what I tell all the tourists I meet. We are very happy people here. Look out at that blue lake. Can you see why?”

(It was also a pleasant place for a while, at least, for Benito Mussolini, who made his residence in a villa in Gargnano in the final years of his Fascist Republic, the capital of which, from 1943 to 1945, was further south on Garda at the town of Salo. At the end of the war, Il Duce fled from Garda in his effort to get to Switzerland, only to be captured and killed on the north shore of Lake Como.)

On up the Garda coast we drove, into tunnels cut through the mountains, out along the lake again, past the lemon trees reputed to have produced Italy’s first lemons, huge role models for lemons elsewhere in the world. When we reached the northern tip of the lake at Riva del Garda, we admired the cliffs, medieval buildings, public gardens and an imposing fortress linked to land by a drawbridge. The scenery was spectacular, looking south down the length of the lake, the foothills of the Alps up against our backs.

In our unending search for the perfect cappuccino--and to fortify ourselves for the drive back to our hotel for dinner--we stopped at a coffee bar with one of the better views. We could have extended the outing by going around the top of the lake and down the east side, but that would have kept us from the Grand Hotel Fasano for much too long.

It was, after all, getting late and tomorrow would be our day with the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, and Luciano was waiting with the olives and the Lugana, and the hotel chefs were at work, and the pangs were beginning yet again.

There is very little to do after sundown; this clearly is not the place for those who like planned entertainment or lively evenings. This was fine with us. We were content to sit on the terrace after dinner, listen to tapes over the speakers--often American music of the ‘30s and ‘40s--and once again study the lake. The Ferraris had pulled out earlier in the day.

The villa of the eccentric Gabriele d’Annunzio sits on a hill in Gardone Riviera just south of the Grand Hotel Fasano and, despite the reassuring words of the concierge that it was within walking distance, we decided to drive. Clearly, his idea of a short walk and ours were about two miles and one steep grade apart.

During the time we lived in Italy, we had often heard tales of the unusual life of d’Annunzio, an adventurer, playwright and poet who was regarded as Itay’s leading writer in the late 19th and 20th Centuries. He was also a military hero and political figure, a leading Fascist and early supporter of Mussolini, and, all the while, a man who kept the public intrigued with his love affairs.

Known as Il Vittoriale, the villa was his home from 1921 to 1938, when he died, and was the scene of visits from assorted lights of the era, including Mussolini, musicians, artists, writers and women, the most famous being the Italian actress Eleanora Duse. D’Annunzio was a small man with a big ego and a penchant for collecting things and, after spending a couple of hours looking at his memorabilia up to the rafters, we felt better about our garage.

The house is preserved intact, just the way he left it, down to a folder with a work in progress. There is so much to see that it’s rather hard to focus: bits of poetry engraved around walls, Napoleon’s death-mask, a reproduction of a Donatello angel, an organ, face masks of Franz Liszt and Beethoven, pianos, over 30,000 books spread over three libraries, wood and plaster sculptures, Murano-glass windows, photos of his lady friends and Mussolini, and his blue bath with thousands of curios, from Persian tiles to Arab daggers to porcelain and ceramics. We couldn’t find the soap.

Wall quotations, in Italian, abound. In the bathroom: “Water is most excellent.” Over the door of his cluttered bedroom: “To genius and to pleasure.” And, outside, more sights: his mausoleum, an open-air theater used each summer, entrances of elaborate porticoes and walls, and the prominent prow of a ship. A gift of the Italian navy, it was dismantled from the decommissioned ship Puglia , loaded onto two dozen railway cars and transported to Il Vittoriale, where in 1921 it was placed on a promontory as an unusual monument.

It was one more thing that D’Annunzio wanted to collect because of its history: The Puglia’s captain was wounded in a battle and rejected his doctor’s advice to wear bandages because the officer wanted to see his wounds. The poet thought that this was a message for his nation as a whole: Italy should contemplate its wounds, not conceal them.

That night we had a farewell glass of Lugana with Luciano and watched the last tour boat of the day go by. After three days, it was time to move on. We could have used a couple of more drives around the lake and another fine meal or two. But, alas, it’s not the first time non-refundable air tickets have prematurely ended a pleasant journey.

We packed up, took a last look at lovely Lake Garda, and encountered Olliver on our way out. He insisted we take a look at a new 12-room annex, the “Villa Principe,” and we made a mental note of the quarters we might want next time. Then we headed for Milan’s Malpensa airport, about two hours away.

On the plane, Miriam opened her Mediterranean travel folder. Ten minutes later, out came a clip from an old magazine.

“Hey,” she said. “Here’s a picture I’ve been saving of a grand hotel in Rimini.”

GUIDEBOOK: Shimmering Shores

Getting there: The Grand Hotel Fasano lies just outside the lakeside town of Gardone Riviera on the western shore of Lake Garda in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. It’s about 70 miles (a two-hour drive) from Milan’s Malpensa airport, where major car rental agencies are located. Touring the Lake Garda area by car is the most convenient way to go, but there is train service to Descenzano del Garda from Milan, and lake ferries and buses connect with local towns.

Grand Hotel Fasano: For reservations from the U.S. telephone 011-39-365-290220, fax 011-39-365-290221. In July and August, a double room on the hotel’s half-pensione plan, which includes breakfast and dinner, runs about $235; in May, June and September (the hotel closes Oct. 3) the rate drops to about $200 for two. There are 75 rooms, a heated swimming pool, tennis court, nearby golf courses.

For more information: Contact the Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles 90025; (310) 820-0098.