How to plan a climbing trip to Arco?

The first time I climbed in Arco, Italy, it completely changed how I thought about sport climbing trips. Between endless limestone walls, gelato stops, and a huge climbing community, it felt like paradise. Since then, I’ve been lucky to visit Europe more and learned a lot about how to plan these trips better. Here’s what I wish I knew before that first time in Arco.

Choosing Arco

Arco sits right at the foot of massive limestone cliffs, just minutes from Lake Garda. It’s packed with routes for beginners and experts alike, and the town itself lives and breathes climbing. Arco feels like you came to a mecca of climbing, everything around you screams climbing, the people around, many climbing stores, climbing vans from all over Europe, and some dish names in resturants. The Limestone is mostly in a very good quality, some classics near the road might be a little polished, but since there are still quite a lot of route development you can easily find new sharpy routes. You have lifetime amount (over 17,000 according to thecrag.com) of single pitch and multipitch climbing routes in Arco, from short easy access 5.2 to the hardest route in Arco which is Excalibur, 5.15c/9b+. Arco is close to a few international airport: Malpensa near Milan is 2 hours and 45 away and Marco Polo airport near Venice is 2 hours and 30 minutes away, renting a car is quite cheap if you compare it to a similar climbing trip in the US, and there are many cute and authentic airbnbs in Arco.

Other climbing areas around worth mentioning

One beautiful area to climb in is the Brenta Dolomites is about 1 hour and 30 minutes away, it is quite different than Arco, similar type of rock but feels way more alpine and this specific area is a real gem and almost feels like a real wilderness, the Brenta Dolomites are way less traveled than the Eastern Dolomites and some say they are not really a part of the Italian Dolomites. The other location is what is undoughtly called the Italian Dolomites