Lake Garda, Italy January 1997 Lake Garda, the elongated, dark feature near the center of the picture, is one of several glacially formed lakes in the Italian Alps of northern Italy. Lake Garda occupies a basin where the southern extent of an Alpine valley was deepened by glaciers and dammed by a large terminal moraine. The lake is 32 miles (51 km) long and has contrasting scenery that includes open, rolling plains at the southern end and rugged, precipitous mountains east and west of the lake. The paralleling valleys adjacent to Lake Garda show elongated, dark features, which are shadows caused by the high, snow covered mountains. There is, however, a small lake (dark feature) in the valley immediately west of Lake Garda. The Italian cities of Verona (southeast of the lake) and Brescia (southwest of the lake) are in this scene but cannot be identified because of the small scale of the image and the lack of contrast between the natural environment and the urban areas. The bottom third of the image shows a section of the broad alluvial plains of the Po River Valley.