Isola Bella & Palazzo Borromeo
Rising from Lake Maggiore like a stone galleon in full sail, Isola Bella has been the Borromeo family's showpiece since the 1630s. Its ten terraced gardens, crowned with white peacocks and ancient statuary, are among the most theatrical landscapes in all of Italy.
The Palace
Step inside Palazzo Borromeo and you enter a world of deliberate excess: gilded salons hung with Flemish tapestries, a hall where Napoleon and Josephine slept in 1797, and six subterranean grottos lined entirely with shells, pebbles and volcanic stone to create a cool, surreal underworld.
The art collection is genuinely significant — works by Rubens, van Dyck and Luca Giordano hang alongside Borromeo family portraits, giving the palace the feel of a lived-in dynastic home rather than a sterile museum.
The Gardens
Ten terraces climb from the lake's edge to an apex crowned by a unicorn — the Borromeo family crest — flanked by obelisks and baroque statuary. Camellias, azaleas, box hedges and citrus trees are arranged with almost theatrical precision, and the views back toward Stresa and Monte Rosa are quietly spectacular.
Arrive when the gates open at 9 a.m. to have the upper terraces almost to yourself; by midday tour groups fill the paths. The boat from Stresa's Piazza Marconi landing stage takes just five minutes and runs every twenty to thirty minutes throughout the day.
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