Grotte di Catullo

Top choice in Sirmione


Occupying 2 hectares at Sirmione's northern tip, this ruined 1st-century-AD Roman villa is a picturesque complex of teetering stone arches and tumbledown walls, some three storeys high. It's the largest domestic Roman villa in northern Italy and wandering its terraced hillsides offers fantastic views.

Despite the name, there's no evidence Catullus lived here, although the poet did have a home in the village. Significantly, the living quarters were on the top floor, offering 360-degree vistas of the surrounding waters; it seems the Romans too liked rooms with a view.