<![CDATA[

Stresa, Italy

The hotel where we are stayIng is right next door to the funicular and a ferry jetty which services the series of islands on the lake. We managed to beat off the private water taxi touters, one who got a little snotty (too bad) and made our way along that most beautiful promenade to the main terminal in town.

There are three main tourist islands, (Isola) Bella, Madre and Superiore. The first two were settled on by the aristocratic Borromean family, and in the 1500’s one of the counts built a big palace on Bella and another less grand one on Madre. Both islands have beautifully landscaped gardens; Bella’s is terraced with a large water feature and lots of statues and Madre is an English style botanical with many rare trees, both also have white peacocks that have been breeding free for a couple of hundred years, averies, and glass houses. Superiore or Pescatore is a small fishing village island with handful of eateries and houses.

Our first stop was Isola Bella which is the closest and only about 10 minute ride. It is the island we can see from our bedroom window and promenade walk. It has a small number of touristy eateries, shops, and accommodation and we grabbed a quick lunch breaking our eat local rule as the local food was pricey and not that value for money looking from what we could see. The place we went to was a German beer house on the waterfront and we got two sausages and a roll for 7 euro and a caprese salad (mozzarella and tomato) for 8, washed down by the biggest latte we have seen in Europe so far at 4 euro ( weak though). It was lovely sitting over the water under shady trees – not sure what they are but the are pruned hard like a vase and all the spring growth comes out like grape leaves including the odd tendril new shoot? There are heaps and heaps of German tourists here as well as a few English.

The palace is not that grand from the outside but shows grandness for its time inside. We enjoyed the exhibits on the two floors open to the public (for a fee). Part of its history includes being the place that the heads of state met to have last minute talks in an attempt to curtail the war in 1935. Earlier than that Napolean visited the count and stayed over before he commenced his campaign (photo of actual bed and room he slept in) Josephine would also visit and holiday.

The countess was a sister to one of the popes and the photo of the mosaic table top was a gift from a pope in the 18th century. Other items of interest were some of the oldest books done with a press in Europe, Etruscan boat and Artifacts, 18th century horse gear, paintings and tapestry. The divine chandeliers are Murano glass.

In the lower levels they designed the rooms as ‘grottos’ to keep things cool. They are made of elaborate stone work and so kitch it was cute. It had a small but very lovely curved airy tower but you were not allowed to go up further than the two floors that were open for viewing.

When you stepped outside the design and flow of the gardens were so regal and well kept. Birds roamed freely on manicured gardens and the white peacocks which are actually quite ugly, put on a great display trying to out do each other. Stairs led up to a big wall feature with statues, water spouts and plantings and then behind this it is terraced gardens down to the cliff face. There were flat manicured formal gardens on either side and a glass house with orchids and exotics and the avery with parrots.

It was very relaxing to walk around and easy to imagine the social evens and life of the rich aided by some sketches and paintings of the time inside.

We did not hop off at the fishing village as it was so tiny we could see most of it when we docked for other passengers, but continued on to Madre. It is very different to Bella as the gardens are like a big English Botanical garden with a wide variety of trees including some from Australia growing quite happily. There was an art exhibition or two there, some I got – the dogs on the step which were clever – but other ones I really thought were awful.

The large tree pictured is a cyprus from cashmir whose life started from seed in 1862. This tree is no longer growing in its natural habitat in the Himalayas and was a wonderful specimen until a tornado ripped through in 2006 pulling it over and damaging a lot of the other special trees in the gardens. A huge rescue effort with helicopters and cranes immediately righted the 70 tonne tree and it got special wrapping and nursing for a number of years and seems to have made it. It is not at all as drapey as it was, but at least it survived. I thought it a lovely story!

Inside this second palace they have a great puppet theatre display dating back to the 18 and 1900’s and the puppets, props and actual designs of sets that went along with it. Also a lot of paintings and clothing that were from the Borromean family personal collection. I particularly liked two big chandeliers from Murano which have candy stripe modern funky flowers on the top. See if you can enlarge the photos at all, such beautiful workmanship and art.

It was lovely walking around the islands – the sun was out and all the beauty, greenery, bird song (and squawk) and flowers made it impossible not to relax and just enjoy being. After our boat ride home we wandered into town and decided to find a better class of restaurant and choose one that we had seen reviewed onTrip-advisor.

Although Stresa is not that big it took us a bit of work to find it, and we were luckily there was just one table free outside. The meals were only a little more expensive than run of the mill places – a euro or two, but well worth it to have a chef cooked meal. The portions were small for Italian but I would rather have small and good than the other any day. I had a house Rose which was a beautiful peach colour and really delicious and we enjoyed the best Panacotta with Caramelised Cointreau sauce we have ever had. Sorry no photo as it disappeared too quickly. Such a nice end to a lovely day we booked in again for tomorrow!

]]>