The "Vittoriale degli Italiani" is a complex of buildings, streets , squares, a theater, gardens and
waterways erected between 1921 and 1938, built in Gardone Riviera on the shores of Lake Garda by Gabriele
D'Annunzio with the help of the architect Giancarlo Maroni, in memory of the "inimitable life"
of the poet - soldier and businesses of the Italians during the First World War.
The Vittoriale today is a foundation open to the public and visited by about 180,000 people .
Today, museums are more than just collections (whether significant or modest) of evidence from the past.
They are cultural, social, economic, and tourist resources, true tools for development.
The Salò Town Council has demonstrated great skill in restoring the former Santa Giustina building.
Finally, its many spacious and bright rooms now house, along a thematic route, the valuable collections of a
city that (unsurprisingly) the rulers of the Venetian Republic once called "the Magnificent Homeland":
works of art, fine instrument making, ancient machinery, the Blue Riband collection, and even curious mummies
form the treasures surrounding the cloister, which will host concerts, performances, meetings, and exhibitions.
The Giardino Botanico Fondazione André Heller (André Heller Foundation Botanical Garden), also known as the Giardino Botanico A. Hruska (A. Hruska Botanical Garden), is located in Gardone Riviera.
Around 1901, Arturo Hruska, of Czechoslovakian origin, a doctor, dentist, naturalist and botanist, moved from Austria to Gardone Riviera. In this corner of paradise, the doctor decided to buy the land where in 1912 he began to design his botanical garden over an area of about 10,000 square meters.
He planted flowers and plants from all continents and more than 2000 different plant specimens.
Artist and architect André Heller bought the garden in 1989, creating a union between nature and art.
Today, strolling in the garden, you will come across artificial and contemporary structures that blend different plant species. It is a pleasant surprise that among the sculptures you can admire work of artists like Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Erwin Novak, Susanne Schmoegner, and Rudolph Hirt.
Home to a productive tradition initiated in the fourteenth century, with paper as primary pole in the territories of the Venetian Republic between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, the original site of entrepreneurial events in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Valle delle Cartiere Toscolano Maderno has preserved impressive traces of its industrial past inserted within an environment that appears in striking contrast with that of the Riviera.
The mill continued its activities until 1962 and with it stopped production of paper in the Valley.
Its longevity has allowed us to retain the single chimney that remained intact among the many who populated the Valley but, especially allowed grasping even the memory of former employees in order to reconstruct the distribution of production functions in different environments. The renovations of the buildings of Maina Inferiore between 2000 and 2007, has restored a high-value manufacturing hub with special reference to handcrafted and watermarked paper.
The charm of the valley landscape, characterized by steep inclines and narrow gorges, also comes from the wealth and variety of its vegetation, mixed among the ruins and spaces of ancient industry.
