Parco Termale del Garda

Parco Termale del Garda occupies the grounds of the Villa dei Cedri estate at Colà di Lazise, in the province of Verona and a short drive from the eastern shore of Lake Garda. The park runs to about 13 acres of mature planting — roughly 150 cedars of three species, along with silver and Nordmann firs, black and Weymouth pines, beech, yew, sweetgum and a stand of swamp cypress on an island — laid out from the late eighteenth century by the Moscardo and Miniscalchi Erizzo families around the neoclassical villa built by the architect Luigi Canonica. The ornamental lake at its centre is as old as the garden, but it held cold water until 1989, when the owning company drilled a well to improve irrigation and struck hot water at 160 metres.

Two water-bearing strata are now tapped, at 160 and 200 metres, reaching the surface at 37°C and 42°C. The operator describes the water as lightly mineralised and alkaline at pH 7.8, high in bicarbonate, calcium and magnesium with a significant silicon content, and it is used both for bathing and as a drinking cure. The main lake covers about 5,000 square metres and is kept at roughly 33–34°C; some 3,500 cubic metres of water are pumped in and 3,000 out each day, so the whole body of water is exchanged in 48 hours, distributed evenly through around six kilometres of pipe and 1,400 injectors buried under the gravel bed. Two hotter pools inside the lake run at 37–39°C, a decorative grotto doubles as a hydromassage hall, and a second, smaller lake is held near 29–30°C in summer to widen the range. The lakes are lit after dark for evening bathing.

Away from the lakes the estate has a separate thermal swimming pool of roughly 440 square metres, partly roofed and partly open with a swim-through between the two halves, driven by more than 75 motors and blowers and lit by fibre optics at night; its water sits at about 33°C, with an adjoining emerald pool at 38–39°C. The wellness centre, over 1,000 square metres carved out of the late nineteenth-century stables and guest quarters, adds a halotherapy room lined with salt crystals, a Turkish bath used for pink Himalayan salt scrubs, Finnish saunas and bio-saunas indoors and in the garden, a cold plunge pool and an indoor/outdoor thermal pool, with booking compulsory. A hotel in the villa, apartments in the Borgo, a country house, restaurants, a gym and a sports centre share the same grounds.

The therapeutic use of the water is recognised by the Italian Ministry of Health under authorisations of 1996 and 1998, chiefly for rehabilitation and physiotherapy, skin conditions, non-acute musculoskeletal disease and venous and lymphatic disorders, with a further 2015 authorisation as a health centre with a specialist and functional rehabilitation clinic.