A stay at the Tonelli Hotels on Lake Garda offers a great starting point from which to visit the prestigious cultural and artistic places.
On Lake Garda stands a true monument of Italian cultural history: The Vittoriale(The shrine of Italian victories), arising from the desire of Gabriele D’annunzio, created by architect Gian Carlo Maroni.
It is a true citadel surrounded by boundary walls, where the great Italian writer decided to collect the keepsakes and vestiges of his exploits in order to leave an enduring mark in time.
At the entrance the visitor is greeted by insignia and mottoes that give a hint of what they will find inside; to reach the residence of the poet, visitors cross plazas and spaces surrounded by sepulchres, statues, votive Aediculae and writings documenting the different stages of his heroic deeds.
After crossing the tree-lined avenues, the visitor arrives at the house of D’annunzio, the Priora, which has been perfectly conserved after his death; order and peace reign inside, in a muffled silence of the rooms in which the poet loved to collect his thoughts.
There are thousands of artistic objects and relics recalling the heroic moments of his life, all collected in symbolically named rooms.
In the War Museum are found the objects related to his military experience, while the Auditorium conserves a photographic exhibition of D’Annunzio´s life and a model of the airplane he piloted; in the Private Gardens, there are rocks from the mountains where he fought in the First World War, and the Arengo (communal assembly) is dedicated to the poet’s oath rites, to the ceremonies and to the meetings of comrades in arms; also stunning is the bow of the Puglia ship which was donated by the Marina Militare (Italian Navy), which is found on a hill, accompanied by a Vittoria alata (winged victory), by the sculptor Renato Brozzi.
On the highest hill of this incredible landscape is located the Mausoleum, on top of which is the ark which conserves the cast-off clothes of D’Annunzio and of the legionari fiumani.
