It was the only full day we have on lake Maggiore. After realizing that exploring the rest of the lake would require 4 hours per day of travel on ferries and getting up early, we exchanged our next three days on the lake for two full days in Venice.
For our day on the lake we decided to explore the 📍Isole Borromee, a set of three small islands (Madre, Superiore, Bella) in a sort of bay about halfway between the lac’s ends. The Borromeo family acquired the islands in the 14th century and built mansions and lush gardens. The 17th-century Palazzo Borromeo and its stunning Italian-style gardens on Isola Bella is the must-visit for its historical architecture, superbly preserved building, and its gardens.
We started with the furthest island, 📍isola Madre, with most of its surface an English-style garden with a “small” 📍Palazzo because, as long as you’re buying islands and setting up a palace on one of them, might as well have another one built on another island just in case you’re tired of the first one I guess. The gardens themselves were redesigned in the early 19th century to be in the English romantic style and introduced rare and exotic plants collected by Vitaliano IX Borromeo. He seemed to enjoy collecting seeds and planting them. Can’t argue with the results. A star of the gardens is the largest and oldest Kashmir cypress in Europe, planted in 1862 that grew to become a symbol of the islands.
From there we went to 📍isola Superiore. Being the literal superior island we had high hopes after the amazing gardens. Turns out this fishing village became an open air shopping center and food court. You can buy all the different kinds of souvenir you like, drink and eat a large variety of food (as long as it’s either pasta, pizza, fish or meat). There is, however, not a single fisherman, fishing vessel or fishing infrastructure in sight. It was the superior letdown of the island and a “skip” recommendation for anyone visiting the islands unless you enjoy crowded shopping centers.
The Last stop was, of course, 📍isola Bella with its superb palace and gardens. It was truly the highlight of our visit and got Karine close to overwhelmed with all the things to see. Everything is manicured, very well preserved and beautiful. The course you’re let through ensures you do not miss a thing, including one of the staircases that was never finished, so you get to see what brutalist architecture looked like in the 17th century.
We ended our day with Gelato, then Apéro at the place that serves no coffee, but choosing the Hugo Spritz in hopes of getting less of a buzz than the large glass of Limoncello we got yesterday. Dinner at 📍Osteria Mercato was an easy affair with our server trying her French while Karine received Italian tips.