Last minute package: vacation travel in Europe
Would you like to practice some "fin-de-siecle" tourism in faint romantic landscapes? Then your itinerary touches the Piedmontese bank of Maggiore lake, with its pearls of Arona, Stresa and Verbania, rich in villas and castles full of history that attracted writers and famous personages, such as Manzoni or Stendhal, but also kings and aristocrats.
Paradises in miniature. In the last century they attracted a moltitude of artists, poets, philosophers and aristocratic European travellers. The French historian Hippolyte Taine, expressed his enthousiasm for these lands writing: “Nowhere else Italy is so beautiful”. We are on the banks of Maggiore lake, first stage of the "Gran Tour" of Italy, compulsory destination of the most aristocratic international tourism between the XIX and XX centuries. Nature and culture: rich in villas and castles and in parks and gardens that leave their soft reflexes on the waters of the lake. This lake crosses different territories: the Western bank belongs to Piedmont (Novara and Verbania), the Eastern to Lombardia (Varese), the Northern to Canton Ticino (Switzerland).
The Maggiore lake is the most Western among the big Alpine lakes and is the second lake in Italy as for amplitude (212 square kilometers) after the Garda lake. Here the climate is mild both in Summer and in Winter. It is equiped with first-rate hotels and with many camping-grounds. On its waters navigation is highly developped, mainly for tourism purposes with modern boats and fast hydrofoils.
Arona had been a Roman resort, then in Middle Age it was dominated by the Borromeo family (1538-84) and today it is an important commercial and touristic centre on the Western bank. On a hill behind the town, raises the most important monument, the statue of San Carlo Borromeo, who was born here in 1538 and was then bishop of Milano. You can also visit the inside: two stairs take to the head of the statue where, through the eyes and the ears, you can stare at the beautiful lake landscape.
Between Stresa and Baveno, where the lake leans towards Mergozzo lake, there is a traditional tourist destination, the archipelago of Borromee Islands, connected with Stresa each half an hour by the boats of Compagnia del Lago Maggiore. They are three little islands different from each other as for beauties and characteristics. The most known is Isola Bella (Beautiful Island) recalling the form of a vessel. In 1670 the Earl Vitaliano Borromeo started to build a huge Baroque palace rich in valuable works of art, arras, furnitures and pictures, and decorated by a majestic scenary of Italian gardens that still today witnesses the magnificence of that period. The largest island is Isola Madre (Mother Island), a garden-island with cosy and enchanted atmosphere, rich in rare plants and exotic flowers, where white peacocks, parrots and pheasants live free. The Pescatori Island (Fishers' Island) is just like it used to be in older times and its charme is due to this archaic simplicity and to the rural purity of its houses and of the narrow roads crossing it.
Intra is the most populated centre of Verbania, it is a climatic resort but also an industrial and in a large part modern town. You immediately see the high cupola and the thin bell tower of the Church of San Vittore and the peculiar IX century anchorage showing the vocation for sailing. Intra is in fact one of the major ports of call of the lake from where leave the boats connecting the Lombard and the Piedmontese banks.
Vacation in the Italy's villas: Maggiore Lake