Visting Italy's Lake District: Part IIIa - Isola Bella

After returning from our morning visit to Monte Mottarone, we first headed back to the Hotel Fiorentino for lunch, which featured a delicious asparagus risotto.

Having fortified ourselves for the afternoon's excursion, we were quite happy to walk along Stresa's lakefront once more

in order to board a small ferryboat to Isola Bella.

Guides K and P discuss the upcoming visit while the rest of us board the ferry.

Isola Bella is one of the Borromean Islands of Lago Maggiore.  Until 1632, the island was a rocky crag occupied by a tiny fishing village.  In that year the influential Borromeo family began the construction of a palazzo that was dedicated to the wife of Carlo III de Borromeo, Isabella D'Adda, from whom the island takes its name. Construction was interrupted around middle of the century when the Duchy of Milan was struck by a devastating outbreak of the plague.  Construction resumed when the island passed to Carlo’s sons, who completed the palazzo and turned it into a place of sumptuous parties and theatrical events for the nobility of Europe.  The gardens were completed later and inaugurated in 1671.  There have been many famous visitors who stayed at Isola Bella, including Napoleon and his wife Josephine.  Here are some views of the palazzo from the exterior. 

We were not allowed to take photographs of the interior of the palazzo although we did have a guided tour throughout.  This is as good as it got for photos of the interior.

We were able to take some pictures of the garden from inside the palazzo, however.

The Borromeo family motto was "humilitas" (humility) and that motif was worked into decorations throughout the interior of the palazzo and in the garden, as here, even though humility seemed at odds with the opulence and ostentation that were evident throughout.

After our tour of the palazzo, we were able to spend about an hour strolling through the gardens at our leisure.  This was the entrance.

From here, we mounted a staircase adorned with floral planters

to arrive at the park before the theater.

The famous white peacocks could be found preening and parading on the grassy areas of the garden

and accepted our adulation as their due.