Lake Albano, the crater beneath the Pope's summer palace

To my mind Lake Albano is what turns Castel Gandolfo into a balcony, yet it usually ends up as a quick photo from the square. It’s a volcanic crater full of water, so deep that the regional park puts it at 170 metres, and the town is perched right on its rim. Here’s how to see it from above for nothing, what on the shore is worth the walk down and what the official sources actually say about swimming in it. The rest of the town is in my Castel Gandolfo guide.

A volcano with a lake inside

The Castelli Romani regional park lists the crater as a geosite. According to its page, the lake sits in an off-centre crater of the Latial volcano, the largest left by its final phase of activity, and it’s really five craters run together, each from a different eruptive cycle. The water is 170 metres deep and the crater walls rise 200 metres above it. That’s why the view from town feels like an amphitheatre, with wooded slopes dropping steeply to the water.

Water also shapes the town’s story. The Papal Villas explain that Emperor Domitian’s villa reached down to the lake, and that three aqueducts brought water from the springs at Palazzolo, on the far shore. They still supply the papal estate and the town today.

Where to see it from above for free

The first place I’d head for is the council viewpoint at Viale Pio XI 5. It’s marked as a lookout over the lake with no architectural barriers, so it works with a pushchair or a wheelchair too. You get the whole crater, free of charge.

If you’re visiting the Papal Palace, its ground-floor café has had a terrace over the lake since December 2024. Only palace visitors can use it, but once you’ve paid for your ticket it’s the best seat in town for this view.

Is it worth going down to the shore?

That depends on how much of the day you have left. The regional park says you walk down from the centre along the road to the lake, and it’s just over a kilometre as the crow flies, going by the map. Getting down is easy; it’s the climb back that tells. At the bottom, on Via Spiaggia del Lago, the council lists free beaches, concession beaches, a playground, restaurants, bars and the Madonna del Lago church, consecrated by Paul VI on 15 August 1977.

What would actually get me down there is the history. The CAI 510 trail, which starts by the disused funicular station, passes the Doric Nymphaeum, the Bergantino Nymphaeum and the lake’s outflow tunnel, a Roman feat of hydraulic engineering from the 4th century BC with a rest area beside it. The Bergantino’s sculptures, with Polyphemus and Scylla, are now in the Antiquarium at Villa Barberini. One thing to know before you go. The trail no longer loops the lake. Only the paved section is open, because a 2008 council order closed the woodland stretch after landslides.

Can you swim in Lake Albano?

The council mentions free and concession beaches along the promenade, and on the day of the 2026 procession it banned swimming only in the procession area, which suggests it’s allowed the rest of the year. What I couldn’t read is the water quality figure for each spot. In Italy that’s published by the Ministry of Health on its Portale Acque, and that’s where I’d look before getting in. With a crater 170 metres deep, I also wouldn’t swim far from the shore.

For children, the shore makes more sense than the palace, with a beach, a playground and room to run about. More ideas for travelling with them are in the Vatican with kids.

The boat procession at the end of August

Since 1954, every year at the end of August, a night-time procession carries the statue of the Madonna del Lago across the water by boat, escorted by craft lit with candles and decked with flowers. 2026 was special, because on 29 August Leo XIV led it aboard the regional park’s boat Falco, the first pope ever to join the procession on the lake. If your trip falls around then, it’s the loveliest moment of the year to be on the shore, and the train times back are in getting to Castel Gandolfo.