Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
EXPLORING THE ISLANDS
Since the 12th century, the Borromeo family
has owned these three islets, which float in the misty waters off Stresa and entice
visitors with their stunning beauty. Isola Bella and especially Isola Superiore have
villages you can hang out in for free, but Isola Madre consists solely of the admis-
sion-charging gardens.
Isola Bella
(
%
0323-30556; www.borromeoturismo.it;
€
10; Mar 25-Oct
22 daily 9:30am-5:30pm)
remains true to its name, with splendid 17th-century
gardens that ascend from the shore in 10 luxuriantly planted terraces. The
Borromeo
palazzo
includes a room in which Napoleon and Josephine once slept.
The largest and most peaceful of the islands is
Isola Madre
55
(
%
0323-
30556; www.borromeoturismo.it;
€
9; Mar 25-Oct 22 daily 9am-5:30pm),
all
8 acres of which are covered by the Orto Botanico, teeming with exquisite flora
and exotic, colorful birds. The villa in the center of it all was built in 1518 to 1585
and is still filled with Borromeo family memorabilia and some interesting old
puppet-show stages.
Most of Isola Superiore, also known as Isola dei Pescatori (Fishermen's Island),
is occupied by a not-so-quaint old fishing village—every one of the tall houses on
this tiny strip of land seems to harbor a souvenir shop or pizza stand, and there
are hordes of visitors to keep them busy.
Public
ferries
(
%
800-551801 or 0322-233200; www.navigazionelaghi.it)
leave for the islands every half-hour from the big building with triple arches on
Stresa's Piazza Marconi. Round-trip tickets to any one island cost
€
5.20 (Isola
Bella or Isola Superiore) to
55
7 (Isola Madre), so it's far more economical to get a
€
10 day pass allowing you to ride as much as you'd like. You'll see other ticket
booths and touts dressed as sailors who will try to lure you aboard; avoid these
overpriced private hucksters and stick with the public ferry service.
LAKE GARDA
Lake Garda (Lago di Garda), the largest and easternmost of the lakes, laps against
the flat plains of Lombardy and the Veneto at its southern extremes, and in the
north, where it juts into the Trentino-Alto Adige region, becomes fiordlike and
moody, its deep waters backed by Alpine peaks. All around the lake, Garda's
shores are green and fragrant with flowery gardens, groves of olives and lemons,
and forests of pines and cypress.
This pleasing, vaguely exotic landscape has attracted everyone from the poet
Gabriele D'Annunzio to the dictator Benito Mussolini who, retreating with his
Nazi minders, founded the short-lived Republic of Salò on the lake's western
shores (where he ultimately was captured and killed by Partisans).
Long before them, the Romans discovered the hot springs that still gush forth
at Sirmione, the famed resort on a spit of land at the lake's southern reaches.
Today's visitors come to swim (Garda is the cleanest of the major lakes), windsurf
(Riva del Garda, at the northern end of the lake, is Europe's windsurfing capital),
and enjoy the easygoing ambience of Garda's many pleasant lakeside resorts.
Sirmione
Garda's most popular resort sits on the tip of a narrow peninsula of cypress and
olive groves that juts due north from the center of the lake's southern shore.
€
