The Borromean Islands are the finest thing about Lago Maggiore — three small islands in the middle of the lake, each with its own character, all belonging to the same aristocratic family that has owned them for six centuries. Ferries run regularly from Stresa and Baveno, and a day hopping between the islands is one of the most pleasurable excursions in the Italian Lakes.
Isola Bella is the showpiece. In 1670 Count Vitaliano Borromeo transformed a bare rock into an elaborate baroque fantasy: a ten-terraced garden rising from the water like a wedding cake, planted with exotic trees, statuary, and fountains, with a grandiose palace at its centre. The palace's state rooms are crammed with tapestries, paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck, and furniture that hasn't moved in three hundred years. The white peacocks strutting the garden terraces are theatrical enough to seem staged.
Isola Madre is the largest and the most atmospheric. The 16th-century palazzo here is quieter than Isola Bella's — the rooms are given over to a remarkable collection of puppet theatres and dolls' houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, including a puppet theatre that Napoleon allegedly commissioned. The garden is wilder and more romantic than Isola Bella's, full of azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons, and ancient Kashmir cypresses. More white peacocks, parrots, and pheasants wander freely among the visitors.
Isola dei Pescatori is the odd one out — a real working fishing village, not a garden showpiece. Its narrow lanes, drying nets, and tumbledown houses haven't changed much in a century. There are several restaurants serving fresh lake fish, and unlike the other two islands it has a permanent population. Come in the early morning or evening, when the day-trippers are gone and the place feels like itself.