An eleven-day itinerary from royal Turin to aristocratic Stresa for the cultured traveller who likes a dash of adventure with their architecture.

Because nowhere else threads together the birth of modern Italy and the lake-side leisure of its nobility quite so neatly.

Turin crowned Victor Emmanuel II in 1861 and still hums with quiet authority; Stresa, guarded by the Borromeo family since the sixteenth century, remains Lake Maggiore’s most refined address.

Skip the usual Rome–Venice–Florence triangle and you will trade crowds for portico-shadowed cafés, Art-Nouveau balconies, island palaces and one very scenic narrow-gauge train.

Wake to camellias and a view that made Hemingway reach for his notebook. Get up Monte Mottarone for a lazy ridge ramble; reward knees with gooey toma cheese at a summit rifugio. Glide back to town for gelato on the promenade and dinner at Ristorante Centrale – saffron risotto with lake perch is practically a rite of passage.

Board the first ferry and feel like visiting royalty: white-peacock-strewn Isola Madre, shell-grottoed Isola Bella, and lunch on fishermen’s Isola dei Pescatori (lake-fish carpione at Ristorante Italia). Return for cocktails on the terrace of the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromées – Art-Nouveau curves, Verdi once napped here, you merely sip and sigh.

Train up to Domodossola, swap to the blue-and-cream Vigezzina-Centovalli, then stay off the train at Santa Maria Maggiore – a village that’s equal parts fairy-tale and folk tale:

Cobbled wander – frescoed chalets, wrought-iron balconies and flower boxes that appear to be on performance-enhancing plant food.

Museo dello Spazzacamino – tiny but touching homage to the chimney-sweeps who once roamed Europe’s roofs.

Piazza Risorgimento pause – espresso laced with Alpine herbs while the church clock marks a life lived slowly.

Walnut-gnocchi lunch – at a wood-beamed trattoria, followed by juniper-berry gelato invented nowhere else.

Woodland loop (optional 45 min) – larch-scented path past stone “càrden” barns and views that deserve their own deep breaths.

Re-board mid-afternoon: either continue through viaducts to Swiss Locarno for a sunset ferry sail home, or roll back via Domodossola’s medieval quarter before greeting the Stresa swans (still queuing for crumbs) at aperitivo o’clock.

Boat skims to Santa Caterina del Sasso, a hermitage glued improbably to limestone thirty metres above cobalt water. Chanting monks optional; killer selfies guaranteed. Drift onward to Arona—climb inside San Carlo’s giant copper saint for a saint’s-eye view—then mosey home on a sunset ferry.

Bus to Orta San Giulio where ivy spills from balconies and time drifts slower than the rowing boats. Hire an electric skiff, circle the Isola’s Benedictine abbey, picnic on robiole cheese, and day-dream about writing a novel.

Morning in Villa Taranto’s botanical wonderland; azaleas, bamboo and fountains choreographed like a mini Versailles. Skip over to Villa Giulia for afternoon tea or a pop-up art exhibit, then ferry back for a final feast at Il Verbano – candle-lit tables lapped by water.

 

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Lazy breakfast as mist lifts off the lake, a goodbye to the Borromeo islands now part of your mental screensaver. Chauffeur to Malpensa or train back to the Savoy capital—either way, you leave with a suitcase full of gianduiotti and a head full of quietly regal moments.

Getting there: Stresa → Domodossola (main line, 45 min) ➜ Vigezzina train to Locarno (2 h) ➜ three-hour ferry back.

Highlights: Alpine gorges, Swiss palm promenades, slow cruise through the Borromean Gulf.

Treat: Pistachio cannoli in Locarno’s old town.