Lake Maggiore Is the Italian Lake Old Money Never Had to Share

Lake Maggiore stretches across the Italian-Swiss border west of Lake Como, longer than its more famous neighbour and, for most of the last century and a half, quieter about who has stayed on its shores. Where Como's profile has been shaped in recent decades by a wave of well-known part-time residents, Maggiore's reputation was built earlier and has stayed remarkably stable: a Belle Époque lakefront of grand hotels, and a set of small islands owned by the same aristocratic family for close to four centuries.

The Borromean Islands, still privately held

The islands of Isola Bella and Isola Madre, along with the smaller Isola dei Pescatori, take their name from the Borromeo family, which has held them since the 16th and 17th centuries and still owns and maintains both Isola Bella's Baroque palace and terraced gardens and Isola Madre's botanical park. Isola Bella's gardens, built up in tiers over what was once a bare rock in the lake, remain one of the most visited formal gardens in Italy, open seasonally to the public while the palace and grounds remain in the family's hands.

Stresa's Belle Époque hotel row

Stresa, the lake's principal resort town, developed as a fashionable stop on the Grand Tour circuit in the 19th century, and its lakefront still carries the hotel architecture from that period, most visibly the Grand Hôtel des Îles Borromées, opened in 1863 and long a stop for European royalty and, later, figures including Ernest Hemingway, who set part of A Farewell to Arms in the town after convalescing there during the First World War.

A lake that never needed a second act

Unlike destinations that have had to rebuild or reinvent a reputation for a newer, more visible kind of wealthy visitor, Maggiore's core appeal, a genuinely old aristocratic footprint still intact and still privately maintained rather than turned into a museum piece, has not required updating. The lake's international profile has stayed comparatively steady rather than surging, which is broadly why it still reads as quieter than Como despite sitting only a short drive away.

Traveller tips

• Stresa is the main lakeside base, reached in around an hour by train from Milan on the line toward Domodossola and the Swiss border.
• Isola Bella and Isola Madre are open to visitors on a seasonal basis, typically spring to autumn; boats to the islands run regularly from Stresa's lakefront.
• The lake straddles the Italian-Swiss border, with its northern tip, around Locarno, sitting in Switzerland's Ticino canton.
• Spring is when Isola Madre's botanical gardens and Isola Bella's azaleas and camellias are at their most in bloom.