The Isola San Giulio is a 275-metre-long limestone outcrop in the middle of Lago d'Orta, almost entirely occupied by a Benedictine monastery, a few private houses, and the Basilica di San Giulio. A single cobbled lane — signposted in Italian as the Way of Silence on one side and the Way of Meditation on the other, since the nuns who live here ask visitors to be quiet — loops the perimeter in about twenty minutes.
Small ferries shuttle from Orta's lakefront roughly every half hour during the day, and the crossing takes five minutes. The basilica is the highlight: a Romanesque interior with frescoes from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries and the famous green-stone pulpit. The monastery itself is closed, but you walk past its walls and gardens on the loop. Half a day on the island, including the boat and the walk, is plenty.