Pieve Noceto

Pieve Noceto sits on the western shore of Lake Garda, a few kilometres from a working harbour. The name comes from the walnut trees that still hold the slope above the water. There is a parish church, a quay used by two fishing boats, and a bakery that opens before the first ferry.

The road does not quite reach the last house. You walk the last fifty metres under the trees. In the afternoon the lake goes quiet enough that you hear a boat long before you see it. In October the walnuts drop on the path and the water turns the colour of tin.

We invented the village so a hotel site could be shown in public without borrowing someone else’s name. The lake is real. The house is a sample.

You leave the car by the water. There is no reception and no street number to punch into a phone. If you have written, someone meets you at the harbour and walks you up.