Monday, September 2, 2013

Stress-Free Day in Stresa

Thanks to a blog post I found on hostelbooker’s Facebook page about traveling Northern Italy by train we decided to take another day trip to a town on the Lago Maggiore.

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Sunset on the lake
This lake is huge and has a lot of towns around it, but after some research we decided on the town of Stresa which has about 5,000 habitants . This town really reminded me of my trip to Nerja, Spain. It was a really beautiful town with amazing views of the lake. It was VERY touristy though.

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Unfortunately, when we arrived it had just finished raining and was still really cloudy. The main reason we wanted to go to Stresa was to ride the cable car up the nearby mountain. But, after a trip to the tourist office we were advised that it wasn't worth it since we wouldn't be able to see anything through the clouds.

Sunset 2

We spent the day wandering around and sitting by the lake. Towards the end of the day we decided that since we weren’t able to go up the mountain we would go on a boat ride to one of the nearby islands.
We ended up going to Isola Superiore passing the beautiful island called Isola Bella (literally meaning beautiful island) which holds a palace and gardens.

Isola Bella
Isola Bella
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Isola Superiore was cute but small. Luckily, we only had about an hour to wander around before we went back to the train station. It took all of about 10 minutes to walk all the way around the island. It was full of hotels and restaurants that looked really nice and relaxing. If you are looking for a vacation full of peace and quiet this is your place!

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Tiny streets

island

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