Isole Borromee

Today we forewent our usual cycling in favor a rest day and some tourist activities. On this trip we’ll do very few tourist activities. I think I used to like touristy stuff well enough but now I’ve been to Italy enough that I’d rather just hang out, ride, and eat. However, the Borromean Islands in Lago Maggiore are quite a sight to be seen. The trip to them on the ferry is quick yet enjoyable. It’s nice to see the mountains from the lake, as opposed to the lake from the mountains, which is what we get cycling.

It was a sunny and warm Italian day, perfect to spend visiting botanical gardens and villas. Our first stop was Isola Madre, which is the main island featuring the gardens and original villa dating from the mid-1500s. It’s a beautiful atmosphere filled with aromatic flowers, plants and trees from around the world, and many peacocks. The villa is expansive and well set at the top of the hill that makes up the island. Touring around it you get a glimpse into what it must have been like throughout the past 500 years living at this estate. The Borromeo family was beyond wealthy and well connected. They were tied in with other powerful families like the infamous Medici as well as the papacy and Catholic Church. The villa on Isole Madre was only one of many estates owned by the family. 

The second is the palace on Isole Bella, respendant with it’s sulptures and well manicured gardens. This palace, built in the early-1800s is more grand than the villa on Isola Madre. The palace sits at the south end of the island, and it’s gardens expand all the way to the northern end. It’s beauty is beyond words. Of course there were more peacocks as well. The peacocks are very used to people and will get really close. I even saw someone feeding one from his hand. They are regal birds and it’s amazing to see them up close, but it’s interesting to note that despite their grace they still walk bobbing their head like a common farm chicken or city pigeon. 

Both estates feature different style architecture of course, but both are equally incredible. Again, another one of those days when we could taken thousands of pictures. One of the main things that is apparent about the Borromeo family is how much they loved putting on marionette shows. A half dozen rooms between the two estates featured giant and extremely elaborate sets, musical instruments, playbills, music, and of course the string puppets themselves. It’s quite remarkable. Between the buildings and grounds, the furniture and art, etc it is a great window into the attention to detail people put into things when they took the time to worry about such things. You look at some of the carving on the furniture or think about how much work it would be to build these structure on normal land, no less an island, and you realize that we’ve gotten impatient and satisfied with simplicity a little too much now. People must have had a lot more focus and determination back then. Probably less distractions too. 

Besides the somewhat expensive visit to these islands (you have to pay for the boat ride and pay for entrance into the villas), we spent the rest of the day after a very late lunch walking to and around Intra. We stopped in a few shops, best of which was a Do It Yourself store, which was basically a hardware store, kitchen store, garden store, craft store, and more all put into one. We stumbled across it on this back alley in a modern part of town that no tourist would ever find. We barely found it ourselves. I left with a metric tape measure that has no inches to be found on it. I’m excited about that. There was tons of stuff in there I could buy and after a day spent around overpriced tourist BS that you can find anyhwere in Italy, I was thrilled to find a real Italian store where no tourists probably ever go. 

We wandered around some more and eventually ended up in the main part of Verbania, which you probably know by now is called Intra. Here can be found many shops, all of which were starting to close up for the day. We stopped in a few, but nothing peaked our interests. Intra has a lot more shops and restaurants, so we decided why not stop in somewhere for dinner tonight. After a long sit on a bench in Piazza Ranzoni I started looking at the Michelin guide website and found a place a few meters away that was given a Michelin plate, which unlike the stars which are reserved for high end cuisine, the plate is awarded for restaurants that have really good food but are more typical. 

This particular place, called Osteria del Castello was situated in the quiet Piazza del Castello and served traditional food in a nice yet casual environment. We shared half of a large outdoor fourtop table with a young Italian couple who were there a bit before us. The whole place was like this. Long tables shared between guests, typical of an osteria. An osteria generally is a casual restaurant with an emphasis on “bar food” Italian-style. This is a Michelin plate osteria so the food was great and the place was busy with many Italians. We really enjoyed the meal and the setting left for our long walk back with very full stomachs. I’d certainly go back there again. I think the Michelin guide might be the way to go. My favorite restaurant in Pallaza also is on the Michelin plate list. I didn’t know that, but it’s the best restaurant I’ve eaten at on this side of town so that makes sense. There is also a Michelin star restaurant here in Pallanza but I don’t think I have the budget or desire to try that right now. 

After walking and sweating a ton today, I’m ready to go to bed with plans to do a long ride tomorrow. I’ll post more photos from our day sometime tomorrow, I’m just running out of energy and photos take a while to load and configure with our internet situation.