I am basing this review on the 2 previous years in Bella Italia Camp site on the opposite side of Peschiera . In Bella Italia we booked direct with the site. In peak time, it’s from Sat to Sat, we usually arrive on a Sun and leave on a Fri. The great advantage of this, on leaving day we did not need to be out by 10am. But obliviously we were losing 2 days.
We also travel with 65 litre rucksacks which weight under 10kg for hand luggage on Ryanair. They are also used as our shopping bags for the bigger supermarkets such as Penny Market and Lidl.
The site is closer to the train station, 20mins walk. The nearest supermarket was Penny Market about 20mins away. We found the camp site supermarket very expensive. The cereals, meats and beer was almost double of the Penny Market. We did walk to Lidl which took about 40mins. There is a big supermarket about 20mins out the Gardaland road that I can’t remember the name.

The main reason we booked this is that I work most or part weekends and we could book with Canvas from any day to any day. Ended up booking 20 days, all my holidays, Thursday to a Wednesday, June/July for under €1700. It cost us this for 2 weeks with Bella Italia last year so we thought it was a good deal.

The camp is very small, with the reception small window access, with queues sometimes. The mobile was 6 berth with a deck and a/c. We found the beds very comfortable. The a/c had a push button time switch system. It switched its self off every 2hrs.
Initially when I was booking I rang the campsite to see if I could book for 20 days directly with them (they have a Sat to Sat policy so did not suit us) and enquired about towels and sheets and they told me the cost. Bella Italia have a laundry room where you collect and/or change your sheets/towels after paying at reception.
But when we arrived on site the Canvas rep showed us to our mobile (lovely free welcoming bottle of wine was waiting) and I asked about towels and sheets and he said because we did not book them online with the mobile they had none available. Went to the reception and they told us that because we did not book with them we needed to go back to Canvas. I explained that they had no sheets/towels and they gave them to us as a favor at a cost of course. The cost from the campsite is half the price from Canvas by the way.
Seemingly when you book with Canvas you leave sheets/towels in the mobile when you leave the last day and in our case if we did that, Canvas would take the sheets/towels and say they were theirs even though the site owned them. The receptionist was not impressed with Canvas and said this was happening too often.
In Bella Italia you actually bring the sheets/towels with you and hand them over for your deposit.

The funny thing is we did not have to pay a deposit. I did not query it but I thought it unusual.

After all this we settled in to a very quite holiday. The mosquitoes we out this year compared to the last 2 years where we got no bites.
This side of the lake is great for walking. We walked for 3 hrs on acceptable paths towards Lazise. We did not like this side of the lake for swimming. The wife is a bit nervous out of her dept and we found the Bella Italia side lovely to swim from one jetty to the other jetty in comfort, for her as you could stand up, way out.
The onsite restaurant was just ok. We thought €2 euro for an Americano was a little steep as again Bella Italia was only €1 for the same. On our walk to Lidl we found an Americano for €0.90.
The pizza’s were nice but the spaghetti was just ok. The staff were lovely though. It was the same price for a take-away aswell.
We found some lovely restaurants in the town such as La Terrazza out the Sirmione road. The clam soup was really lovely. Another was across the road from the Tourist Information down a little street towards the centre of town. It had lovely steak, spinach and Italian potatoes. My judge this year was to get Italian potatoes and not French fries in a restaurant. My idea being that if the restaurant do only French fries they were lazy with the rest of the menu.

There was one pool compared to Bella Italia 6 pools. Swimming hats must be worn. Nice for a dip but busy and only early in the morning for length swimming as it was empty.
The beds cost €2 a day. You have to pay at reception and they give you a receipt which you bring to the pool attendant. He will then give you the necessary mats for the beds and an umbrella.
Booking around 9pm, there was no problem getting where you want and leaving a towel on the seat was good enough. But I seen newcomers pay and put their beds in order and not having towels on them. If around lunch there are bed with no towels it seems to be acceptable to take them for free. Also some people would take beds with no mats without paying and would only be put off if someone arrived with a receipt for it. A younger pool attendant was very strict and did not allow drinking our own bottle water beside the pool. He was also very strict with the kids in the pool and people using beds without paying.

It’s a very small campsite and a nice walk to town. We were situated well away from the night time activities. The mobiles were a little close and you could hear people talking in the one behind when you were inside, probably coming in from the vents. This site is suited to family with small children as there was no sun bed rush in the morning not like Bella Italia and the activities suit them.
We prefer Bella Italia as the kids are late teens and the pool is not our thing really. It just seems to be more professional.
We had a bad experience with a restaurant just outside the front gate which we did not go back to.
We flew into Bergamo and paid €2 each for a zone 3 bus to the train station. Get your ticket in arrivals hall (place selling all kinds of coach tickets) and not at the machine outside as its quicker. The train to Peschiera was €6.80 each and we changed in Bresia. Total time takes about 2hrs.

I stayed in camping butterfly august 2011 with my 12 and 17 old daughters. I was disappointed in the poor access to the lake requiring stepping over endless stones and rocks. The pool in the campsite was excellent and very inviting. The mobile homes were on top of one another with no privacy. I found the Canvas reps Terry and Carmel friendly and helpful. I would recommend hiring a mobile which has decking as the dried up ground at the front of my Canvas mobile was unattractive and fully exposed to passerby . I did not enjoy my eating experience in the campsite restaurant. The pasta was originally presented cold and I returned it but I was offered dry up pasta with very little sauce. I would recommend hiring a motor boat which is good value at 38 euros for one hour accommodating 6 people. Garda Land was good fun and was 15 euros per person in the evening after 6pm with free transport to and from the theme park from Peschiera. I would like to return to Lake Garda but will travel the extra miles to the North of the lake

We'd read some mixed and poor reviews of this place after booking and so were a little nervous. It is small, and if you were placed near some of the poolside activities I can imagine it would be noisy. We were well situated away from the pool and neighbouring camps. The site is mainly geared up for Dutch and Germans, but this was no problem for us and our 10 and 11 year old boys as the on site activities were of little interest to us.
As a base for exploring the lake and surrounding area it is excellent. Peschiera itself is lovely. The beach - 2 mins walk away - is great. Verona is 15-20 mins by train and Venice is 1 1/2 hours away by car. Canvas Holidays reps were friendly and helpful. Mobile home was comfortable and the a/c was invaluable. On site restaurant is good value and quality. The shop is no worse for prices than any other on site shop we've used.

We have just returned home after staying at Camping Butterfly with two young children (under 7 yrs old). We chose this campsite as it was described, on its own website, as an 'oasis of peace and fun', leading us to expect a small, quiet, relaxing site. This may be true in low season... however, we were there in July and found it more like a holiday camp than anything else. There are daily activity sessions in the pool, involving loud dance music for 1.5 hours every afternoon (same songs every day). Then the mini disco every evening (same songs again), usually followed by bingo/karaoke or other activities in the open air bar, only a few metres from the nearest mobile homes/caravan sites, until 11pm. Initially we felt lucky that our mobile home was not near to the activity area, until we realised that just the other side of the hedge from our pitch was the activity area of the much larger Del Garda campsite. Complete with LED screen, live music blaring out until between 11pm and midnight at least 6 nights a week, and sometimes in the daytime as well. Some of the pitches had noise disturbance from two sides - Butterfly and Del Garda. The second night our daughter was in tears at 10pm as she could not sleep due to the noise (so loud in the children's bedroom that we could have sung along to the tunes had we so wished). She finally dropped off, exhausted - but we then had tired, grumpy children in the daytime to deal with. After two days I was almost in tears. We tried to move but had no good options as it was high season. In the end we escaped as much as possible, and wore out the children in the daytime so that they slept through the noise. We have been to 15 campsites in France and never had this problem - we enjoy sitting outside in the evenings once the children are in bed, looking at the stars... this time we just could not relax. We love Italy very much but next time we'll try Agriturismo. Butterfly is ok if you like the constant entertainment and music, some of the pitches are quieter and it was clean, but they and the tour operators should be much more honest about what they are offering to avoid such disappointment.