Borromean Islands

Count Vitaliano Borromeo erected terraces on Isola Bella, a little island outside Stresa on Lake Maggiore, in the mid-1600s, building a luxurious summer castle and a terraced garden that seeks to incorporate every characteristic of Italianate gardens into a very small space. Both have resulted in a sensuous overload of gilded flourishes, enormous salons, sculptures, trees, flowers, and even a shell-encrusted false cave.

It's a lot of fun to see, and then you'll enjoy a calm stroll around the adjoining Isola Madre's large gardens and covered lakeside paths, which has its own more modest summer castle.

Stop for lake fish in the much tinier Isola Pescatori, a fishing community that completes the Borromean Islands trilogy. You may easily see all three in a single day by boat on a Lake Maggiore Isola Bella. From Stresa, take the Hop-On Hop-Off Ferry Tour and spend as much time as you wish seeing the palaces and gardens. It is one of the best islands in Italy.