From Milano you don’t need a car to take this day trip to one of the most beautiful corner of the Italian Lakes: the Isole Borromee on the Lake Maggiore, you just hop on a train of the “TreNord” train company, and in a short time you are in a magic place of lakes, gardens and palace.
This is specially recommended in spring or autumn, when often you can leave the fog and cold of Milan to reach sun-shining lakefront views in the mild climate of the Lake Maggiore.
This itinerary starts from the Lombard side of Lake Maggiore, crosses over with ferry and boats to the Piedmont side, and ends in Stresa. The return is from Piedmont to Milan on the Simplon train line. The entire boat trip takes 55 minutes. You can get off the boat in any of the intermediate stops and take a later boat: there are around two each hour.
For however fanciful and fantastic the Isola Bella may be, and is, it still is beautiful.” (C. Dickens, 1844)
On this island just across from Stresa, Count Vitaliano Borromeo started construction in 1632 of the monumental baroque palace, and began to landscape the majestic scenery of the gardens for which the Island became so famous, and which today still bear witness to the splendors of that bygone age. The Borromeo family home offers visitors an elegant and sumptuous setting, and it contains priceless works of art such as tapestries, furniture, statues, paintings, and stuccoes. It also has an unusual mosaic grotto.
This is a guide to the Borromean Islands, on Lake Maggiore.
It is ideal for use on your smart phone, it contains active links to the web sites of transportation system, so you can with a click from the guide check the latest schedule and even buy the tickets.
It has also listing of many reviews for the best recommended restaurants that are at walking distance from the train station.