August 2019 – Italy

Towards the middle of August we headed to Italy and a week long break at the Regina Palace Hotel in the town of Stresa on the banks of Lake Maggiore.

The setting was lovely and the hotel quite grand although the food was a bit like school dinners (package holiday in smart hotel?).

We visited two of the islands just off Stresa: The Island of the Fishermen (Isola dei Pescatori) was just a maze of restaurants and shops (not for us).
However, the second island was Isola Bella with a beautiful Baroque palace and elaborate Italian gardens dating from the 17th century.We had a guided tour of the palace but it was the beauty of the gardens that made the visit. There were several white peacocks roaming free and all seemed completely indifferent to the many tourists. As we approached the island one could make out the ornate terraces but it was not until we walked around that we could really appreciate them.

We travelled by boat across the lake from Stresa to Cannobio where we enjoyed a pleasant walk around the old town. After a bus ride across the Swiss border to Locarno we enjoyed wine and aperitive overlooking a piazza before boarding the Centovalli Railway to travel back into Italy. The journey was 52Km long with 83 bridges and 31 tunnels. The countryside was quite amazing with lots of deep gorges, high mountains, rivers and waterfalls. Gerry even spotted deer grazing in the forest. The journey took 2 hours and was fascinating. Quite by luck we sat on the correct side of the train to get some amazing views. Unfortunately, the reflective nature of the windows meant no decent photos.

The next day we went by coach to Lake Como and the town of Como itself. The town was bustling and full of tourists. We visited the Cathedral and were quite taken with the blue and gold decorated ceiling but also enjoyed the peace and tranquillity of the place. Given all the tourists, we decided not to spend an hour queuing to take the funicular railway up to Brunati and instead walked along the lake side before finding a bar to enjoy the view, wine and nibbles!

The following day we were free to do our own thing so set off early to walk the mile or so to the cable car station. We took the Stresa to Mottarone cable car. We changed cable cars half way up at Alpino and then transferred to a chair lift to get to the top of Mount Mottarone (1,491m2 / 4,892 ft2).
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On a clear day Mount Mottarone has a 360 degree panoramic views across the Po Valley to the Alps taking in some seven lakes (Lake Maggiore, Lake Orta, Lake Mergozzo, Lake Varese, Lake Comabbio, Lake Monate and Lake Biandronno). Unfortunately, there was some mist and cloud but we did enjoy the view and fresh mountain air.
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There was a lovely view of Isola Bella from Alpino.

After our time at Mount Mattrone we decided to walk along the promenade into Stresa town itself and look at some of the back streets away from the lake front. On the way, we visited the lovely gardens of the Grand Hotel Des Iles Borromees. The beautiful ornate walls shown in the photo were a mosaic of different coloured pebbles. in each of the archways there were several fountains that danced to a carillon on the stroke of every hour. We just happened to be there on the hour.

The weather on the following day was fantastic with beautifully clear skies as we headed by coach over the Simplon Pass which rises to 2,005m and connects Domodossola in Italy to Brig in Switzerland. The mountain and glacier views were fantastic!
We continued our journey to the town of Tasch where we boarded a shuttle train to the vehicle free town of Zermatt (1608m elevation). Here we travelled on the rack railway (the highest open-air railway in Europe) to Gornergrat and an elevation of 3135m. The sky was clear and we had the most brilliant views of mountains, glaciers and The Matterhorn (4478m). They were breathtaking:

On our last full day we visited Orta San Giulio. We had travelled by bus to the village of Pella and then by ferry across the lake. Once in the very touristy, but quaint, town we climbed up to the wonderful site of Sacro Monte di Orta a Roman Catholic devotional complex on the summit of a hill known as San Nicolao.

We found the site rather disappointing as the chapels were in general quite dark, had limited access and far too many tourists!

After a pleasant lunch we travelled by ferry to the island of San Guilio and its Basilica with perfectly preserved 14th century frescos.

One of the finest views of the day was of the island from Sacro Monte. (shown below)

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We had a lovely week in Italy and returned home to Fairford in time for some glorious weather!