Italy: Part 4 to Switzerland
Ferry coming into Stresa.
Leaving Venice we headed west to Milan. However, we only saw the inside of the train station in Milan before running to our next connection to Stresa. We had never heard of Stresa but through Barry’s train travel research, this was the best way to get back to France and see some sights. It was a lovely little town on the banks of Lake Maggiore. Lake Maggiore’s southern part lies in Italy and it’s northern part lies in Switzerland. So before heading to Locarno on the northern shores, we stayed briefly in Stresa. It wasn’t raining this day but the gray skies would give way to rain for the next leg of our journey.
Promenade along the waterfront
Safe harbor for boats along the promenade
A typical Italian small town street. This one is Stresa.
There were some beautiful and unique hotel sights in Stresa. Here are a few that caught our eye.
A beautiful, old, derelict hotel whose grounds are now used for the modern monstrosity they built next door to replace this. Probably too hard to restore. This was just one of several buildings on this old site.
Regina Palace Hotel
Beautiful flowers and fountains at this one.
The most interesting hotel in the entire town is called the Grand Hotel et des Les Borromees. This is the hotel where Ernest Hemingway stayed for convalescence after WWI. Here he wrote the semi-autobiographical novel Farewell to Arms. The suite is available to stay in and has 2 bedrooms, one living room, a studio and three bathrooms for a total of 2580 square feet. It also has a terrace of 1600 square feet with sweeping views of Lake Maggiore and the Alps. It can be your for only for $4,000 a night!
The hotel
Main entrance
The crosswalk in front of the hotel leads to the private dock so you can park your yacht during your stay.
Or perhaps arriving by helicopter to the helipad is more your speed…
Entry to parking garage and spa
The spa
The hotel gardens
We left Stresa for the 4 hour ferry ride across Lake Maggiore with the Alps in the background as we tacked across the lake to stop at smaller towns along the way. Along the way we crossed the border between Italy and Switzerland and landed in the Swiss town of Locarno.
Ferry dock in Locarno.
The weather was mostly rainy with only a few sun breaks. We had a lovely boutique hotel room in a small hotel across from the ferry.
My kind of hotel greeting!
We spent our afternoon here exploring the town and the lake edge. Although the weather was cold and damp, we persisted. There was nothing particularly exciting about this or other Swiss towns we passed as most of the buildings were newer and modern clean lines with not much character.
one interesting house we passed
street scene
lake path
lake path from different angle
most interesting part of our walk
The view from our hotel room the morning we left.
Next, our journey from Switerzerland to France begins.
