🇮🇹 Stresa and Isola Bella

Isola Bella and Stresa

After getting over our beautiful surroundings we decided to venture out to explore the surrounding area. Rob navigated the serpent switch back narrow descending thin roads and headed to the popular lake front town of Stresa. Stresa is full of lavish hotels and stunning estate gardens full of lush green hedges.

We caught a boat from Stresa over to the beautiful Island – Isola Bella. Which was a lovely 8 minute boat ride from the mainland.

The Isola Bella is a quaint island which is home to the most outstanding palace and gardens that we have ever stepped foot in. It cost us 13 euros each to explore and we definitely got our monies worth. Room after room extravagantly decorated with historical artwork smeared over every inch of the walls, lavish furnishings, and billowing ceilings.

Elegance and wealth oozing out of every crack of this beautiful palace. Tapestries chairs, wall carpets and ceiling murals entwined with lavish balconies and huge windows which look out onto the lake.

On the lower level is an artificial cave like grotto lined with archway made of shell and coral like walls and and ceiling murals. Exquisite horse bridles and saddles are on show from times past. Along with some stunning old puppets.

We couldn’t imagine anything finer and then the door automatically opened and we found ourselves outside in a magical garden. We followed the stone stairway upward into a stunning garden which was truly an green oasis of huge stone statues and topiary lush manicured gardens which were an artwork of nature and man. To top it all off peaceful white peacocks looking like beautiful brides with their lustrous long tail feathers shaded themselves in the garden fringes.

Fountains flowed and cascaded into ponds that housed huge healthy fish.

The gardens open up onto the most stunning views of the lake. At every turn was another garden landscape. We looked down on the garden maze and over at the gardens full of symmetry lines and shapes.

Rhododendrons billowed out in beautiful shades of blue, mauve, purple and pinks. They were beautifully arranged like perfect wedding posies of nature. The flowering walls light up the summer garden like fireworks full of so many different colours, textures, different varieties of plants and flowers. The scent was heavenly in the summer air.

It was a truly harmonious place to walk through full of nature’s beauty. The gardens also had a huge bird aviary.

The island itself was a small maze of narrow ascending alleyways and steps which houses cute hotels and unique shops. Restaurants spilled out onto the small lake front with overhanging flower walls and market vendors tempted tourists with their displays.