Visiting Italy's Lake District: Part IVc - Stresa by Day and Night

We returned to Stresa and Lago Maggiore, both of which looked enormous compared to diminutive Orta and its surroundings.  To stretch our legs, we wandered along the lakefront, taking in a couple of sculptures such as this bronze dedicated to the brave and strudy mountaineers, accompanied by their trusty pack mules, who used to trek on foot through the Alps to and from Switzerland in the service of international commerce.

Prominently featured along the lakefront is a sculpture commemorating the role that US forces played in freeing the area from the Nazis in WWII.  The northern lake district was one of the last regions of Italy from which the occupying German forces, previously Axis allies of Mussolini's Fascists in Italy, were driven.

HWMBO was fascinated photographically by a display of prosciutto hanging in one of the local grocery stores,

while I was more interested in actively sampling various flavors of gelati.  That is probably one reason why he is tall and slender and I am ... er ... more rotund.

One evening, we accompanied other members of the group to a free concert at the Palazzo dei Congressi, where a sixteen-year-old violin virtuosa thrilled us all with her muscial talent.

Later we walked along the lakefront viewing the grand hotels and restaurants by night, with their lit up fountains brightly sparkling

and enjoyed the twinkling lights from other villages around the lake.