travel guide: Lago Maggiore, Italy

Being in Italy is like browsing through the pages of history!!

Italy: A place where the presence of 3000 years is felt at each and every moment!

Italy: The place is more beautiful or the people I wonder!

Italy: A place where food is so delicious!

Italy: A place where people talk continuously abt sth tht doesnt make ny sense at all!

Looking at the Italian peninsula on googlemaps, switching the view from "Satellite" to "Terrain", two mountain ranges can immediately be recognised. The Swiss mountains in the North and the mountain range that runs along the peninsula. I had the opportunity to travel to the North (close to swiss border), to the middle (on second mountain range) and Sicily in the south (The Shoe) on three different occasions (April 2008, Sept 2009 and June 2011).

In the north: Lago Maggiore (in Piedmont), Verona, Venice (in Veneto)

In the center: Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa, Cortona (in Tuscany), Perugia, Assisi, Orvieto (in Umbria)

In the south: Palermo, Mount Etna (in Sicily)

*** It's difficult to organise all the information/pictures on one page. For this reason, I have split the information region-wise and intend to upload it one by one.

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THE NORTH

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When you go up-north in Italy towards Switzerland, you have these huge lakes surrounded by beautiful mountains. One lake that took my breath away.

Lake: Lago Maggiore

Length: 54km

Time: Spring 08

Picture taken from Isola Madre (Mother Island)

City : Stresa
My Hotel : Hotel La Palma (in the picture)
Stay: One Week

Memories:

Heavy Breakfast, Heavy Lunch with Espresso Shot, Heavy Dinner, Beer....
A week spent eating, and eating more.. until I couldn't eat anymore!
Talking while eating, and talking the rest of the time!

The lake has tiny villages around, next to it and on the mountains.

One evening I come out of the hotel and started hiking on the mountain with Aleksey. We encountered waterfall, beautiful villages and the view of the lake. We came down when it got dark. The picture on the right was taken in some village while coming down.

Isola dei Pescatori (The Fisherman's Island)

One day the whole group went to visit the islands that we could see from Stresa. We visited Isola dei Pescatori and Isola Madre. We had our lunch on Isola dei Pescatori.

Isola Madre (Mother Island)

The view of the island from Stresa in the night. It has a number of architectural structures and a beautiful garden where flowers blossom and white peacocks roam around.

Some More Pictures:

Everyday after dinner in some restaurant (left) we used to end up in this pub (right).

The towns around Stresa are very rural. Because of the Simplon Pass (Brig to Domodossola), the city now falls on the line connecting Milan (in the south) to Swiss Cities (in north). The booming tourism caused Stresa to develop into a popular tourist destination in this region.

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THE CENTER

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THE SOUTH

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Place: Mount Etna (Sicily)
Time: Sept 2009
Attraction: 2nd Largest Active Volcano in Europe (3300+ meters high)
Experiences: Barren black volcanic landscape, Warm ground and melting snow, Cold and unpredictable weather.