Lesa_ Il porticciolo:  Lago Maggiore  Apartment Solcio di Lesa with terrace Lake View! Stresa is 7.5 km away.
Lago Maggiore Lesa Apartment Solcio di Lesa Lake View! Stresa is 7.5 km away.

Isola Bella - Borromeo Palace and gardens

In 1632, Count Vitaliano Borromeo began the construction of the monumental Baroque palace and the majestic and scenic gardens, which have made the island famous and which to this day bear witness to the splendours of an era.

The Borromeo family home offers visitors an elegant and sumptuous setting, and it contains priceless works of art such as tapestries, furniture, statues, paintings, and stuccoes. It also has an unusual mosaic grotto, a cool and delightful place.

Once you have visited the palace, there is access to the garden for a pleasant walk. The gardens form an extraordinary, flowered monument laid out over a series of ornate and overlapping terraces, a classic and inimitable example of seventeenth century "Italian garden". The garden contains many rare and exotic plants, and the spectacular blossoming is planned to ensure that it is filled with colours and scents from March until October.

Val Grande National Park: the largest Wilderness Area in the Alps

The largest Wilderness Area of the Alps (about 15.000 hectares) enclosed between Lake Maggiore and Ossola Valleys became a national park in 1992.

The European Wilderness Association declared Val Grande as the only area in Europe that completely maintains original environmental properties.

In Val Grande let’s find high mountains, alpine lakes and smaller valleys but also challenging paths and shelters used for housing or stabling in the past and now as accomodation to hikers. Nowadays villagers and pastures leave their place to wild nature (several are the plant and tree types there) and animals (i.e. chamoises, roes, deers, foxes and eagles).

Hiking or trekking are possible only with mountain guides. Visits best in spring, summer and beginning of autumn. Panoramic destinations are Faiè and Zeda mounts or, less difficult, the Piancavallone mountain dew. Starting points: Premosello Chiovenda in Ossola Valley or San Bernardino Verbano (Rovegro), Intragna, Buttogno and Cicogna on the hills above Lake Maggiore.

The Park is rich in past testimonies (for example in Verbano valleys: the ancient mountain pasture on Alpe Ompio up from Bieno, village of San Bernardino Verbano and the mule tracks near Aurano) and works of art (for example in Verbano valleys: the Romanesque bell tower in Bieno, the Madonna di Re Oratory from the 17th century in Oca, village of Cossogno, the Roman bridge towards Rovegro and the parish church with seven altars in Intragna).

The Park is rich in culture too with several museums.

Vigezzo Valley (Ossola Region)

In Malesco there is the Archaeological Stone Museum (in Pretorio Palace; open everyday from June to September, 10-12 and 15.30-18.30/Fridays and Saturdays also 20.30-22.30; during the year open on request – Tel. +39 0324/92444 for reservation; entry ticket: € 2,00/Kids till 5 years old: free).

Verbano valleys (Verbano Region)

In Cossogno water, nature element belonging to men’s essential goods, is well described in the "Acquamondo" Water Museum by means of aquariums, models and panels as well as of didactic laboratories (Info: Tel. +39 0324/87540).

In Intragna there is finally the Museum of Night Animals.

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Giardino Botanico Alpinia

Situated within a unique panoramic area, the garden extends over approximately 40,000 sq.m. and from the ample terrace one can enjoy a spectacular view on Lake Maggiore, the Borromeo Islands and the surrounding mountain range. About 1,000 alpine flower species can be admired in the Botanic Garden.

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AdressLocalità Alpino

National Park Veglia - Devero

The Park includes two mountain basins, the Alpe Veglia on the Lepontine Alps at the head of Val Cairasca bordering on Switzerland, and the Alpe Devero in Val d'Ossola in the northern part of Piedmont. A gentle and sober Alpine environment: gentle in the undulating high-mountain grasslands and sober in the austerity of the great mountains and of the huge mountain ranges beaten by the wind. An environment shaped by man, the result of the toil of many generations of mountaineers.

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