Saturday, 21 September 2024, Stresa: Les Îles Boromées

Written 24 November 2024

I got a chance on Saturday morning to get a shot of this conventional (as opposed to stylized) map of the area we're in. We started our tour with two nights and a full day in Milan (Milano), then we spent time in Como, Bellagio, and tiny Tremezzo (between them) on our way here to Stresa, where we've just spent the day on islands in Lago Maggiore just off shore from our hotel. Eventually, we'll end up in Venice (Venezia), over at the right-hand side), but we've still got several stops to make on the way.

At the right here is the view of Lago Maggiore from my hotel room. I'm pretty sure the island with one building on it near the left-hand edge of the photo is Isola Madre. The other two Îles Boromées are to the left of it just out of the picture.

Pretty nice breakfast at the Grand Hotel des Îles Boromées, but the tea situation is hopeless. No kettle in the room, no kettle or samovar in the dining room, and one-cup ceramic pots of hot water already set out and waiting on a table, cooling all the while. I made do with weak and tepid Twinings English breakfast from their assortment of teabags, but tomorrow I'm switching to hot chocolate.

Here are the assortments of breads (left) and Viennoiseries, cakes, and tarts (right).

The meats—crispy bacon and cute little pork sausages—were pretty good.

At the right here is my breakfast plate (at least the first one). The scrambled eggs were, of course, strictly salt-'em-yourself.

This breakfast venue was also pleasant. Here it is at the left, sunlit and airy.

On a dividing half-wall between the dining room and the corridor was a reproduction of a piece I remember fondly from Art 100: Daphne turning into a laurel tree. Cupid made Apollo fall in love with Daphe, daughter of the river god Peneus. Then he made Daphne hate Apollo. Daphne ran from Apollo's advances for as long as she could, but when she tired, she called to her father for help, and he turned her into a laurel tree in the nick of time. The sculpture captures that very moment—her hands are turning leafy, and her face is stiffening. Apollo was disappointed, but he vowed to make her his special symbol and was always afterward associated with laurel wreaths. A genus of plants is called Daphne, but it's not in the laurel family. Peneus's name is the origin of the genus Penaeus of marine shrimp.

At 9 am, we all set off on foot for an orientation tour of the small village of Stresa. Here's a photo of the hotel from across the streeet, actually taken later in the day. You may be able to make out the name of the hotel is big gold letters across the façade, two floors above the entrance doors. The letters "ND H" are attached to David's balcony railing, and "OTE" to mine, so we're front and center, with a breautiful lake view.

With the hotel on our right and the lake on our left, we walked along the narrow lakeside park toward the center of town. Every few yards, we encountered a monument to somebody or something. The one at the right here commemorates the mules and other pack animals that served the alpine defenders of northern Italy.

It might have been a market day, but I suspect these stands are there everyday, trying to lure the tourists walking to and from their hotels.

At the left typical breads of the region (Valdosta, "east valley," just like the town in Georgia). At the right, cheeses. I'd never seen a cheese at was triangular in cross section! The one to the left of it seemed to be coated in a thick layer of dried fruit, figs maybe. On top of the counter was the same thing but with a large wedge cut out, so you could see the layer of coating that ran through the center as well.

Written 26 November 2024

Here's the ticket kiosk for the little white tourist train, but we never saw the actual train, and the ticket window had a curtain drawn across behind the glass so maybe it wasn't the right season.

Nearby was the local "mouth of truth"&Mdash;I think the one in Rome is the original. As usual, legend says that if you put your hand in the face's open mouth and tell a lie, it will bite you.

Just on the outskirts of the town proper, we came to a dense cluster of really touristy places selling souvenirs and the very common and popular spice mixes and kits. These are risotto kits vaccuum-packed mixtures of rice and other items that you cook up to make risotto in flavors like procini mushroom, tomato and basil, truffle, squid ink, mushroom and tomato, lemon, squash, ginger, shrimp, pistachio, pear and potato, nettle, red wine, "lake" flavor, squash blossom, hazelnut, artichoke, saffron and garlic, and blueberry.

Written 27 November 2024

At the top right in the photo, those cellophane bags are stuffed not with candy, as you might think at first glance, but with brightly colored dried pasta. At every stop, including all those AutoGrilles, Danny winced at the sight, pleading with us—souvenir spice combos, meal kits, risotto mixes, etc. are okay, I guess, but please don't buy the colored pasta! It's embarrassing!

This area has long been on a tourist route, because it's on the Simplon Road, which connects Milan and Switzerland, passing through the Simplon pass in the Alps. The pass had always been used by locals, but in the early 19th century, Napoleon (of course) had a proper road built through it, which has since been improved to stay open all year around and a railway tunnel has been added.

I spotted gray crows in the parks (those ones that look like scruffy, unwashed magpies).

And as we walked, tour director Danny said an interesting thing—that a palace can be a row house (think Place des Voges in Paris), but a villa is, by definition, freestanding, with a garden around it. I was delighted to have the actual definition. I have long held that Westminster Oaks has no business calling duplexes "villa homes," and it explains a remark by my French friend Françoise the first time she visited us in Tallahassee. We drove her in from the airport to what we many times described to her as "our house," but when it came into view, she exclaimed, "But, it's a villa!" Who knew?

We continued on through the town's narrow streets, some narrower than the one at the left here, until we came to "Navigazione Lago Maggiori," the terminal from which all the shuttles and ferries on the lake depart. There, we boarded another private boat for the brief ride to Isola Bella, one of three islands in the lake collectively known as the "Îles Boromées."

The Boromeos are (and have been for a long time) a very wealthy family of Italian nobles. St. Charles Boromeo was one of them. They still own two of the three islands named for them. Isola Bella is called that not just because it's beautiful but because it was bought, and its elaborate palace built, by a Charles III Borromeo (grandson of the saint, I think) bought the island from the Holy Roman Empire as a gift for his wife, Isabella, So it's not just "Beautiful Island" but "Bella's Island."

Here's a rather dark photo of the island as we approached it. The palace and its terraced gardens fill it edge to edge, and what you see here is mostly terraced garden with a little piece of palace sticking out to the right.

At the right here, our party is disembarking at the little "side entrance" where our boat let us off. In the background, you can see how close the lake shore is to the island.

We were led in through an interior courtyard to the beginning of our guided tour of house. After the usual guard room with weapons on the walls and a series of smaller rooms, we were shown this dining room.

The chandelier is 208 years old and is, of course, Murano glass.

Our guide for the tour explained that the palace has 198 rooms, of which we would see only about 40. It's still owned by the Borromeo family and is still their summer residence. They were there while we were! He didn't say how many family members use it, but they currently use about 50 rooms. In addition, two levels of the terraced gardens are reserved for their use, so we would only visit the upper two levels.

Next came this magnificent, high-ceilinged ballroom (70 feet in the center), which is still used as a party room when the occasion arises. That's our local guide in the middle, in the white shirt and tie, next to David in the blue shirt.

The ballroom housed this model of the island. In this photo, we're looking at the terraced garden end; most of the palace is hidden, on the other end. This model was made from the original plans for construction. At the far end is a huge artificial harbor that was never actually built. Just building what's there now took 100 years.

Here's a view from the other end showing more of the house, with the garden behind. On the right-hand side, you can see the smaller artificial harbor that's used now. The big one that was never finished is out of sight at the lower left corner of the photo.

Our guide pointed out that the palace floor is not original; it's only 250 years old and made of Venetian terrazzo. The harpsichord in the right-hand photo dates from 1692. That's David again, in the blue shirt, and the black lanyard around his neck reminds me that this is as good a place as any to meniton that the new, rigid, right-eared earpieces Tauck used for the QuietVox system are really uncomfortable!

The music room, the one with the harpsichord I think, was the room where the Stresa Conference was held and the ill-fated treaty signed.

Only one ceremonial bedroom is located on the ground floor; all the others are upstairs and not on the tour. Its floor incorporates this design of three interlocking rings, from the coat of arms of the Borromeo family. It synbolizes the union of the Borromeo, Sforza, and Visconti families. Our guide showed us that even the pattern on his tie incorporates it.

In August of 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife (Joséphine, before Eugénie's time) slept in this room. They apparently just showed up, uninvited. He was only 27 at the time and still just a general. The ceiling of the room was flat but painted in trompe-l'oeuil to resemble that of the music room.

More recently, April 1985 I think he said, Charles and Diana spent the day here, invited by the Borromeo family, but they didn't stay the night.

At the right is a view of the Isola Madre, the largest island in the lake. It's now a botanical garden, but has one building, now a museum. Until the end of WWII, it was was another summer residence of the Borromeos. The Sforzas were dukes of Milan during the time Leonardo was there.

At the left here is the library, just for purposes of the tour. Upstairs in the private area, they have 12,000 books in their real library, the only part of the palace that's climate-controlled. The guide emphasized that (except for the library) the entire 198-room pile is unheated! All the fireplaces are ornamental only. That's why it's only open, and only available for tours, March through October. Now, in September, the family is starting preparations to move back to their winter homes.

A room nearby featured this 15th century ivory saddle, which was a gift from some important person whose name I didn't catch. It has, of course, never been used, being too valuable to risk. Only 20 of them exist in the world, and four are in the Met in New York.

The room was line with large-format paintings of mythological scenes by Luca Giordano, one of the most important students of Rubens. He was apparently called "Luca fa presto" (Speedy Luca) because he was ambidextrous and supposedly painted with both hands at once. He turned out these large-format paintings in soemthing like 10 days each. The guide pointed out, though, that the originals of the really good paintings are upstairs in the family area. The ones downstairs tend to be by students of famous painters.

Written 28 November 2024

One small room served as a gallery of family portraits (only a sampling of the collection was on display). Charles I Borromeo, the one who became a saint, was born here on the lake but 100 years before the palace was built. The modern Borromeos still live in Milan, heriditarily a prince and princess, but now just citizens of Italy. The great grandmother, of the present prince, Elizabeth Borromeo, was a well known painter. In this painting she made of dogs watching a baby in the cradle, the the baby is the grandfather of the present prince.

The next rooms displayed paintings of many of the family's other properties, most of them now museums. The guide said that last year they had a million visitors, but I'm not sure whether he meant just Isola Bella or all the properties together.

Next we were shown this table, 400 years old, decorated with a realistic still life of flowers. Domenica Molea spent about 10 years making it; it was a gift to Giberto Borromeo from pope Leo XII (1760–1829). What's really remarkable is that the image is not a painting but a micromosaic of tiny bits of glass paste. The black is mostly cubes, but for the image, each tessera seems to have been made individually in the appropriate shape.

Here's a much closer view of the table. I hope you can make out the individual tesserae. The ones in the braided border are much larger than the ones used in the image.

Next came a large oval ballroom, which was not baroque but neoclassical. All its decoration was false marble, made of stucco, which was cheaper and lighter to transport and gave better accoustics.

At the right here is a case displaying a few of the palace's collection of 2000 wood and papier maché marionettes. It has apparently been a family tradition for generations to spend some of their summer time making (or perhaps commissioning?) marionettes and putting on puppet shows for one another.

Here's another case of marionettes.

The light wasn't very good, so some of my shots are kind of blurry, but I hope they give you an idea of what the rooms looked like.

Not rooms where you would be tempted to lounge by leaning on a wall.

Many of the floors were mosaics of pebbles; hard on bare feet, I would think.

The sleeping Venus in this room is 300 years old, carved in Carerra marble.

Another room held a 300-year-old model of Venetian galley used by the Dutch, and yet another a 3000-year-old prehistoric dugout canoe recovered from the lake in the 1880's. Elsewhere, we were shown a two-man rifle; it was very long, weighed 28 kilos, and needed two men to carry and fire it.

At the right here, surrounded by racks holding ornate harnesses for a large team of horses, is a model of Arona fortress, located at the end of the lake 10 miles south of here. That's where St. Charles Borromeo was born in 1538.

Written 2 December 2024

Here, at the left, is a view up the stone spiral staircase that runs all the way from the grotto level to the top of the palace's highest tower—some 30 meters and 80 steps. It's remarkable in that it has no central core—each stone step juts out, unsupported, from the side wall. Fortunately, each is set two feet into the thickness of the stone wall, so it's not as scary as it sounds.

Then came another series of beautifully decorated rooms, many including family portraits. At the right here are Margarita de Medici with her three children. St. Charles Borromeo is the one at the far right, at age 5.

Another couple of rooms were lined with 500-year-old Flemish tapestries, several featuring unicorns (the symbol of the Borromeo family, remember).

My notes say that "15 ladies spent about 8 years on each tapestry," but now I'm not sure how to interpret that. Maybe each of 15 ladies spent 8 years on one of the tapestries? The information is probably on the web somewhere . . .

At the end of the palace tour, we had free time to explore the gardens before regathering for lunch. Here's the entrance to the terraces to which we had access.

We were told that "Italian gardens are where nature meets art," so there's statuary all through the gardens, both this one and others we saw.

At the top of the stairs flanking the central fountain were a pair of gigantic camphor trees (Cinnamomum camphora). Here in Tallahassee, that species is considered an evil, invasive exotic, but on Isola Bella, where an army of gardeners is presumably available to keep it in check, they're very proud of their huge specimens.

At the far end of the central axis was this elaborate statue-encrusted structure topped by a giant unicorn. The whitish rectangle is not a reflection but a section covered by scaffolding and scrim where work is being done on the façade.

The telephotoed view at the right shows the unicorn more clearly. It's being ridden by a character in a plumed helmet.

The gardens were great and included widely varied specimen plantings (from cedars of Lebanon to wild magnolias from the southeastern U.S.) as well as colorful flower beds.

Rather scruffy white peacocks stalked the lawns.

I was struck by both this neat stand of giant bamboo (left) and this cork oak (right) that clearly hasn't had its bark harvested lately.

When our free time was up, we all regrouped under the camphor trees and walked back down to the landing to reboard our boat for the short hop to Isola dei Pescatori—Fishermen's Island—which is famous for being the only island in the group that was never actually owned by the Borromeos.

Just as Isola Bella is entirely occupied, edge to edge, by the palace and its gardens, Isola dei Pescatori seems to consist solely of restaurants and souvenir shops, though we came across one small church and its picturesque little cemetery, so I think some people actually live there.

We had a truly outstanding three-course lunch at a restaurant called Casabella. As you can see from the photos, we had a great view across the lake back to the shore where our hotel was (just out of sight to the left of the photo).

David started, as he did at every opportunity on this trip, with a plate of the outstanding local raw ham, aged 24 months. The heap had canteloupe under it, but he fished that out and gave it to me.

I had carpaccio of marinated salmon trout (from the lake) with beetroot, lemon, and thinly shaved cucumber.

David's main course was beef rib steak with reduction sauce.

Mine was exquisite roasted salmon trout with eggplant sauce (at 4 o'clock on the plate). I couldn't believe how many people peeled off and pushed aside that beautifully crispy and tasty skin!

Both came with roasted potatoes and and seasonal vegetables.

For dessert everyone got this beautifully decorated (and very yummy) panna cotta with berries and red fruit coulis—one of David's very favorite desserts (and not too far down my list either).

The place was too small and the streets too narrow for motorized vehicles, so the whole island was a pedestrian zone. At the right here is what a typical row of buldings looked like. Even if nobody lives there, someone takes good care of the window boxes.

Here's the little cemetery I mentioned. Many of the stones looked quite new, despite bearing 19th-century dates, so some may have been replaced.

Nearby was this memorial plaque listing the names of three natives of the island who died in WWI. As is frequent in Europe, the WWII memorial is just an addendum to the older one, at the bottom, this time listing a single name.

When our exploring time was up, we drifted back to the boat landing. From there, we had this good view of Isola Bella, this time from the palace side.

Our faithful motor launch took us back to the "mainland" at Stresa, from which we walked back along the lakeside park to our hotel. At the right here is part of the rather grandiose mosaic sidewalk leading up to the lake-side entrance.

We had dinner on our own in the hotel's "fancy" restaurant.

The amuse-bouche was athin slice each of very good smoked swordfish, with a little piped rosette of soft cheese and a whole hazelnut.

This time for my starter, I chose pasta carbonara.

David ordered the potato soup I had the night before.

David's main course was honey-lacquered pigeon with Campari reduction and local hazelnuts.

I chose perch filets in panko tempura, which weren't very good—tough and chewy rather than light and crispy—and the "crunchy vegetable noodles" were just julienned raw vegetables.

David's dessert was beautiful—a Napoleon of fresh raspberries.

I stuck with a known winner and ordered the lemon sorbet again.

For a hotel of such pretension, this one failed to impress me. Demerits I would give:

• The coat hangers were the kind designed to prevent theft: bases permanently attached to the rod and lower parts without hooks, so that you have to thread little posts into holes on the bases; the kind of thing you expect to see at, say, Motel 6, and not what we saw at other hotels on the trip.
• The ketchup, mustard, and mayo were served in little plastic single-serve pouches even in their fancy restaurant.
• The waiters never remembered who at the table ordered what and kept having to ask.
• The waiters had to be flagged down even to refill water, let alone wine.
• The electrical outlets in the rooms were too few and inconveniently placed.
• The tea hassle at breakfast was worse than usual; the hot water was already cooling on the sideboard before the diner even arrived.
• The butter was Président brand (good) but served in rigid little half-teaspoon plastic tubs (dreadful), and only unsalted was available.
• The "conservation cards" for the bed linens were backward. That is, rather than saying "place this card on the bed if you want your linens changed" (the convention everywhere else that I know of), these said "place this card on the bed if you don't want your linens changed," so you had to remember to set it out every day.

Finally, I would like to suggest to Tauck and to Viking (and to the hotels they choose) that couples on their tours might wish to join other people on the same tour for breakfast, spontaneously, if they happen to arrive at breakfast together or see space at a table and ask if the seats are free. At many of the hotels on this trip and on others we've taken recently, that's not allowed. On arriving at the dining room, you have to give the number in your party, and you are given a table for exactly that many. Sometimes they were even reluctant to give me a table for two if I arrived alone and wasn't sure whether or not my husband would come down later.