Peschiera del Garda Fortress Site Features

The fortress is a pentagon with a bastion at each corner, and the plan is the point -- angled bastions let defenders cover the ground in front of every wall with flanking fire, leaving no dead angle.

The walls are low and immensely thick, faced in brick and stone and backed with earth. This is the opposite of a medieval castle: nothing rises high enough to be a target.

The Mincio is channelled through and around the works, filling the ditches and dividing the town into sections joined by bridges -- so water is both defence and street plan.

Two monumental Venetian gates survive: Porta Verona and Porta Brescia, both carrying the lion of St Mark.

The Austrian additions of the nineteenth century -- outworks, magazines, barracks -- sit outside the Venetian core and are plainer and more purely functional.

The walls

Walkable in long stretches, with the ditches full of river water below and the bastions projecting at each corner.

Porta Verona and Porta Brescia

The Venetian gates, still carrying the winged lion and still the ways into the town.

The canals

The Mincio runs through the fortress, so the town centre is divided by water and crossed by bridges -- unusual for a fortress, and pleasant.

The view from the water

The pentagon only really reads from a boat. The ferry departure gives it for the price of a ticket.