Salò's Secret Film History: A Walking Tour of its Movie Locations

Salò, on the western shore of Lake Garda, has played many roles throughout its history – wartime capital, Renaissance trading hub, and unlikely film set. On this walking tour, you'll trace the locations where Italian and international filmmakers found their backdrop in this lakeside town. You'll also hear how Salò's complicated past, from its years as the administrative centre of Mussolini's Italian Social Republic to its postwar reinvention, shaped the stories told on screen here.

The tour starts along Lungolago Zanardelli, where you'll visit Hotel Laurin, a floral Art Nouveau villa that housed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the war and later appeared in Silvano Agosti's autobiographical film Uova di Garofano. From there, you'll move into the historic centre, passing the statue of Saint Charles Borromeo – used as a hiding spot in the 1954 German romantic comedy Liebe und Trompetenblasen – and into Piazza Duomo, where a cheeky Italian comedy staged a scandalous bell-tower scene without the parish priest's knowledge.

You'll continue along the lakefront promenade past the bronze war memorial in Piazza della Vittoria, which opened the same German film with a parade of soldiers and flower-tossing locals. Further along, you'll hear how this stretch of shore was transformed into a Wild West set for the beloved Italian TV programme Carosello, and how Pier Paolo Pasolini chose Salò's misty autumn lakeside for the opening seconds of his most controversial film. The tour ends at the Palazzo del Podestà, a 16th-century seat of power that once governed 52 municipalities under Venice's rule.

On this 45-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Visit Hotel Laurin, an Art Nouveau masterpiece that served as a wartime Ministry and a film set
• Hear how Piazza Duomo was used for a risqué comedy scene filmed without the priest's permission
• See Angelo Zanelli's bronze war memorial, the only monument in Brescia province spared from wartime metal drives
• Discover how the lakefront became a Wild West backdrop for Carosello, Italy's beloved early TV advertising programme
• Learn the story behind Pasolini's notorious Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and its fleeting local connection
• Explore the Magnifica Patria's legacy at the Palace of the Magnifica Patria, decorated with Venice's Lion of Saint Mark

After the tour, find a lakeside café, order a Cedrata Tassoni – still sold in Salò's bars today – and raise a glass to a town that has never stopped surprising its visitors.