Lake Maggiore & Lake D'Orta, Italy

White Peacock on Isola Bella 
- Lake Maggiore, Italy

Restaurant on Isola Bella - Lake Maggiore, Italy

Grand Hotel where Hemingway
Wrote A Farewell to Arms 
- Stresa, Italy

Statue of Artist - Lake D'Orta, Italy

Lake Maggiore & Lake D'Orta, Italy  (7/12/2009)

Spectacularly beautiful! These photos tell the story better than we can tell it.

A day trip by bus from Menaggio on Lake Como took us to Lake Maggiore and Lake D’Orta visiting the incredibly remarkable Isola Bella, Palazzo Borromeo, and the village of Stresa.

Lake Maggiore is the second largest lake in Italy located on the south side of the Alps. The climate is mild in both summer and winter, producing Mediterranean vegetation, with beautiful gardens growing rare and exotic plants.

Lake Maggiore, Italy

Palazzo Borromeo on Isola Bella 
- Lake Maggiore, Italy

Wayne & Pat at Palazzo Borromeo 
on Isola Bella - Lake Maggiore, Italy

Palazzo Borromeo 
- Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, Italy

White Peacock 
at Palazzo Borromeo, 
Lake Maggiore, Italy

Palazzo Borromeo on the island of Isola Bella in Lake Maggiore is considered by many to be the most beautiful gardens in Italy - don’t miss it if you go. We were blown away with the white peacocks (see photos). Baroque palaces and works of art preside over 10 tiers of lavish terraced gardens - just amazing!

The upscale town of Stresa on Lake Maggiore has the 19th-century Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees where Hemingway wrote his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms while recovering from war wounds. 

The smaller peaceful town of Orta San Giulio on Lake D’Orta is also very nice.

For more about this wonderful Lake District of Italy, please see our 3 other blog posts:

Italy Lake Como Menaggio Bellagio Living Around the Lake

Italy Lake Como Villas Villages

Italy Lake District Gardens

Please see our other posts on wonderful Italy:

Venice, Italy - My Favorite City in the World

Pompeii, Naples, Pomero, & Taormina, Italy

Bologna, Italy

Verona, Italy 

 

Tirano and Bernini Express, Italy

 

 

Please enjoy 250+ wonderful places around the world, with award-winning photos, from our BLOG ARCHIVE on the right ----> 

 

Travel for half the cost for all levels of travel from budget to luxury and 100's of other unique tips! From a former Economic professor, experienced traveler (106 countries), award-winning travel photojournalist/blogger, featured speaker at large travel shows, host of the travel TV show Plan Your Escape® TV aired on the CW network, and travel columnist for the Huffington Post, our popular 5-star customer rated groundbeaking and comprehensive how-to world travel book Plan Your Escape, Secrets of Traveling the World for Less Than the Cost of Living at Home reveals secrets how you can travel and see more for half the cost for all trips from weekend getaways to longer vacations and trips, experience more adventure and romance, safely realize your travel dreams with comprehensive planning tools and checklists, travel the world for less than $100/day for a couple, and much more!
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Lake Como, Italy - Villas & Villages

Town of Menaggio - Lake Como, Italy

Villa del Balbianello - Lake Como, Italy

Town of Como - Lake Como, Italy

Town of Varenna - Lake Como, Italy

George Clooney's Villa - Lake Como, Italy

Villa Monastero - Lake Como, Italy

Town of Bellagio - Lake Como, Italy

Town of Bellagio - Lake Como, Italy

Town of Leno - Lake Como, Italy

Town of Leno - Lake Como, Italy

Villa Carlotta - Lake Como, Italy

Lake Como, Italy - Villas & Villages (7/6-14/2009)


Lake Como is a special place on earth that has been difficult for the best writers to describe. Let me try with the following… great food with one amazingly beautiful lakeside village, villa, and garden after another!


Lake Como has a hint of Switzerland just to the north where mountainsides drop right into the deep, mirror-still lake, yet with a definite Italian profusion of elegant villas, grand hotels, stylish lakeside villages, and lush gardens.

We started our visit in the town of Como in southern Lake Como where we took a gorgeous 2 ½ hour ferry ride through the southern part of the lake viewing wonderful villa after villa (including George Clooney’s two villa compound - see photo).


From there we moved on to the absolutely stunning village of Bellagio (namesake of Winn’s Las Vegas hotel). Steve Winn attempted to purchase and redevelop a large lakeside hotel in Bellagio and the town stopped him.

We then decided to stay in the village of Menaggio. We like Menaggio better than the more famous Bellagio because everyone tried harder to please you, it's pretty and just as easy to explore the mid-Lake Como area from Menaggio, and the prices were better. 


From Menaggio, we visited by ferry the fanciful villages of Varenna, Tremezo, and Lenno. 


We also visited fabulous villas of Serbelloni, Balbianello (scenes from James Bond 007 movies shot here), Carlotta, Cipressi, and Monastero (see photos). Wandering these villages and villas day and night is pure pleasure we hope all our family and friends get to do sometime in their lives.

For more about this wonderful Lake District of Italy, please see our 3 other blog posts:

Italy Lake Como Menaggio Bellagio Living Around the Lake

Italy Lake District Gardens 

Italy Lake Maggiore Isola Bella


Please also see our other posts on wonderful Italy:

Venice, Italy - My Favorite City in the World

Pompeii, Naples, Pomero, & Taormina, Italy

Bologna, Italy

Verona, Italy 

 

Tirano and Bernini Express, Italy

 

 

Please enjoy 250+ wonderful places around the world, with award-winning photos, from our BLOG ARCHIVE on the right ----> 

Travel for half the cost for all levels of travel from budget to luxury and 100's of other unique travel tips! From a former Economic professor, experienced traveler (106 countries), award-winning travel photojournalist/blogger, featured speaker at large travel shows, host of the travel TV show Plan Your Escape® TV aired on the CW network, and travel columnist for the Huffington Post, our popular 5-star customer rated groundbreaking and comprehensive how-to world travel book Plan Your Escape, Secrets of Traveling the World for Less Than the Cost of Living at Home reveals secrets how you can travel and see more for half the cost for all trips from weekend getaways to longer vacations and trips, experience more adventure and romance, safely realize your travel dreams with comprehensive planning tools and checklists, travel the world for less than $100/day for a couple, and much more!
Buy this popular book on Amazon.com (also available as Ebook for $9.99), CLICK HERE