Some questions announce themselves the moment you ask them, and “when should I go to Lake Maggiore?” is one. The honest answer is late April to early October, with the gardens quietly deciding the calendar for everyone else. This is…
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Where to Eat on Lake Maggiore
A morning on Lake Maggiore has a rhythm, and much of it is decided at the table. The water here has fed the villages for centuries, and you can still taste that history in a plate of perch or a…
Where to Stay on Lake Maggiore
Choosing where to sleep on Lake Maggiore is really a question of what you want to wake up to. The lake stretches for some sixty-five kilometres between Piedmont and Ticino, and each town along its shore keeps its own particular…
The Perfect Lake Maggiore Itinerary
There is a particular light on Lake Maggiore in the hour after breakfast, when the mist lifts off the water and the Borromean Islands seem to float rather than sit on the surface. I have come back to this corner…
The Best Things to Do on Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore has a way of rearranging your priorities. You arrive with a list and a schedule, and within a day the lake has quietly persuaded you that the only sensible plan is to follow the ferries, chase the light…
The Borromean Islands: A Complete Guide
Some places hold their reputation lightly, and then there are the Borromean Islands, three small scraps of land in the Borromean Gulf that have been drawing travellers across the water for centuries and have never once disappointed me. I have…
Victoria’s Complete Guide to Lake Maggiore
There are three great lakes at the foot of the Italian Alps, and everyone has an opinion about which one is best. Como gets the film stars, Garda gets the families and the windsurfers, and Maggiore, quietly, gets the gardens….
Lake Como – The Sound of a Riva
There is a particular sound that means summer to me, and it is not birdsong or church bells but the low, patient burble of a wooden Riva easing out of its boathouse while the water is still the colour of…
San Fruttuoso: The Abbey, the Boat, and the Christ of the Abyss
San Fruttuoso is one of those places that rearranges your sense of the coast. You cannot drive to it. There is no road, no car park, no coach turning circle. There is only a fold in the Portofino promontory where…
The Best Time to Visit Portofino
There is something almost theatrical about Portofino. The little harbour, the tall painted houses leaning shoulder to shoulder, the yachts arranged as if by a set designer: it is a place that performs, and the season you choose decides which…
Where to Stay in Portofino
Portofino is tiny, and that changes everything about where you sleep. The village wraps around a single horseshoe harbour, a cluster of ochre and rose houses stacked above fishing boats and, these days, the occasional improbable yacht. The whole place…
Where to Eat in Portofino
Portofino is tiny, and that tininess shapes everything about eating here. The harbour is really one perfect curve of pastel houses around a piazzetta the size of a large drawing room, and almost every table worth having looks straight at…
