Local airports would include Bergamo and Verona, or you could fly to Venice and take the train to Lake Garda approx 1.5 hours.

Hi again! Glad to see you venturing off into lovely parts of the world again! Thanks for your pm, but I hope that this information might help others heading off to Lake Garda, so I'm posting it on the board for all to see.

FLIGHTS

You asked about departures from Birmingham or Luton, but the nearest option I could find was a Luton to Bergamo flight with Ryanair .... and am concerned that this might be winter only. If it continues into summer, that is definitely your best option. However, there are Ryanair flights from East Midlands Airport, London Stansted as well to Bergamo, which truth to tell is the nearest airport to Lake Garda and Desenzano.

There were flights with scheduled airlines (BA and BMI) to Venice and Milan. If you decide to travel via these two, make sure that it is VENICE MARCO POLO airport (VCE) and MILAN LINATE (LIN) or MILAN MALPENSA (MXP) (not Venice VEZ!)

SURFACE TRAVEL CONNECTIONS

For getting to Desenzano by rail, I suggest you look at http://www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html for timetable information. It's only about 30 mins by train from Bergamo train station to Desenzano. Bergamo Airport's website (in English) does have details of a shuttle bus between the town and the airport - a lot cheaper and more reliable than that offered by Ryanair which takes you to Milan Central railway station;

Hope that starts the ball rolling for you, and please get back in touch with any queries or bits to sort out! My pleasure, as always!

Hi again
As ever, excellent advice and information so thank you very much.
Since my last post I have discovered that BMIBaby fly out of Birmingham to Bergamo on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at extremely attractive prices!!
many thanks for the websites

Kind regards, talk again soon

Just been reading some travellers reviews of BMI Baby on this forum and they were almost all dissatisfied mainly for reasons of delays, cancellations and lack of information/communication.

It seems to be only too true that 'you gets what you pays for'.

We booked yesterday for Limone at the far end of Garda - Hotel Villa Elite

We fly from Bristol to Bergamo on July 2nd with Ripoffair and arrive there at around 1500hrs.

Question now is how do we get from Bergamo to Limone before midnight?