Camping del Sole

The area around Lake Iseo is laced with excellent hiking trails. Start with Monte Cognolo (five minutes’ drive or a half-hour walk – to the base of the peak), whose forested silhouette looms large at the back of the site, or go hiking on Monte Isola (35 minutes), a mountain in the middle of the lake. The Franciacorta wine region stretches just south of Lake Iseo, so it would be churlish not to pay a cheeky visit to the cellars to stock up on the award-winning sparkling wines produced here. Wineries like Bellavista and Ca’ del Bosco, both on the outskirts of Erbusco (15 minutes), offer tours and tastings. Large, elegant squares dot the centre of Brescia (half an hour). They include Piazza della Loggia, with an astronomical clock crowning a long colonnade, and Piazza della Vittoria, with its 1920s fascist architecture. The Castello di Brescia, atop a wooded hill, houses the Risorgimento Museum, with displays on Italy’s 19th-century fight for unification.