Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore

Isola Bella rises from Lake Maggiore like a ship of stone: a Baroque palace at one end and, at the other, gardens stacked in terraces above the water, the whole island given over to a single family's vision. It measures only about 320 by 400 metres and lies some 400 metres off the shore at Stresa, one of the three Borromean Islands that take their name from the Borromeo family.

Until 1632 it was little more than a rocky outcrop with a fishing village. That year Count Carlo III Borromeo began transforming it into a residence for his wife, Isabella D'Adda, whose name, softened to Isola Bella, the island still carries. The Milanese architect Angelo Crivelli laid out the first plans for both palace and gardens. Work stopped in the middle of the century when plague swept the Duchy of Milan, and was taken up again by Carlo's sons, Cardinal Giberto III and Vitaliano VI. The architect Carlo Fontana brought the palace to completion, and the gardens, finished under Carlo IV Borromeo Arese, were inaugurated in 1671.

The island reached its social height under Giberto V Borromeo, who lived from 1751 to 1837. Guests in those years included the historian Edward Gibbon, Napoleon and Joséphine, and Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales. In April 1935 the palace hosted a meeting of the leaders of Italy, France and the United Kingdom, whose resulting agreement became known as the Stresa Front.

Stresa, the town facing the island, is a lakeside resort of a few thousand people in Piedmont, about 90 km northwest of Milan, on the road and rail route to the Simplon Pass.

Getting there

Regular ferries cross to the island from the docks at Stresa, about 400 metres away. Verbania, the provincial capital, is about 3.5 km away. Stresa station has direct trains south to Milan and north towards Switzerland. The nearest airport is Milan Malpensa (MXP), about 33 km away in a straight line.