May 13 - Lake Maggiore

Lake Maggiore is the second largest lake in Italy and lies to the northwest of Milan.  It is 42 miles long with a maximum depth of over 1,200 ft, with much of the lake bottom well below sea level. About 10% of the lake is in Switzerland with the rest in Italy.  We checked into the Hotel Simplon in the town of Baveno.  Baveno is located on Borromean Bay which is on the western side of the lake not quite half way up the lake.  This is a very elegant hotel, here is a photo of the ceiling in the lobby.

Here is a photo of the hotel showing the very nice pool and the back of the hotel.

Here is the view from the dining room showing the pool and the lake and mountains.

And here is the dining room where we ate breakfast.

After checking in we headed down the main street to see some of the town and to get some dinner.

 

Here are a couple of photos of the lake front.  This one is looking south.

And this one is looking north from the other end of the lake front.

Because this is a large lake with a lot of towns scattered around the lake shore, there is a ferry boat service that runs around the lake.  Here is the ticket office.

And here is one of the ferries.

This area of the lake is famous for a group of five islands in the bay that are known as the Borromean Islands.  They are Isola San Giovanni, Isola dei Pescatori, Isola Madre, Isola Bella and Scoglio della Malghera.  All except Pescatori are owned by the Borromeo Family since the 16th century.  Pescatori is know as the Island of Fisherman and today has a population of about 50.  Here is a photo of it.

Isola San Giovanni has a palace built by the Borromeos but is not open to tourists.  One of its most famous residents was Arturo Toscanni who lived on it during parts of the 1930's and 1940's.  Malghera is not much more then a rock with a couple of trees.  Madre has a palace and extensive gardens, but the island we will be visiting today is Isola Bella.  We take a water taxi from the Baveno docks.  Here is a photo back towards Baveno as we are on our way.  You can see snow on the mountains in the background.

One of the summer cottages that the wealthy from Milan and others have built over looking the lake.

Here we are approaching Isola Bella with the Borromeo Palace just in front of us.  The name of the island is a play on words.  Isola Bella means beautiful island and is named after Isabella the wife of Carlo Borromeo III who had the palace built.  It is still used as a family residence and only a small part of the palace is open to the public.  The Borromeo family were bankers that arrived in Milan in 1370.  They came from San Miniato and the original family name was "Buon Romei"  which dates from before the 13th century and means "Born in Rome" because of their origin in the city of Rome.  They became members of the Milanese aristocracy in 1445 when they became Counts of Arona and Angera in 1445 (these towns are both on the lake).  They are related to the Viscontis (who were the dukes of Milan) by marriage.  Later they backed the Sforza family to succeed the Viscontis.  There have been a total of seven Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church in the family including the most famous St. Carlo Borromeo who was Archbishop of Milan and is buried under the main altar of the Duomo in Milan.

I guess this little cannon was used to defend the island.  I guess they didn't have very large boats on the lake.

Here is a photo of two of our travelling companions, Joe and Maria Franco.

I don't know if any of this was used but they did had a fair amount of it mounted on the walls.

We weren't allowed to take any photos in the palace which is a shame as it was something special to see.  We were able to take photos of the gardens and here is an example of an area just to the side of the palace.  I was able to take this photo because the family was not in residence.  If they had been all of the window shades on the family side of the palace would have been closed.

They had several white peacocks in the garden.  Unfortunately this guy wouldn't put on a show for us.

As you will see there were lots of roses.

There was a formal tiered garden and the walls were covered with these roses.

They also had a formal garden.

More of the gardens.

Pat in front of white flowering shrub.

Here are two of the Joes in our group, Joe Christie and Joe Franco.

And here is our group photo.

After this we headed back to the main land and then took a tour of the next town down the road, Stresa.  Neat little town with lots of narrow medieval streets and town squares.

For dinner this evening I had a local specialty of the Milan area, Cotoletta alla Milanese.  If you saw it or tasted it you would say it is Wiener Schnitzel.  Turns out there is a debate going on between Milan and Vienna as to who originated this.  Who ever did it was very good.

Tomorrow we explore more of the lake and visit a botanical garden, Bergamo and end up at Lake Garda