The Lake Maggiore, which embraces a rich historical inheritance, offers a natural setting of unrivalled beauty. It is surrounded by the Alps and is studded with picturesque villages and famous resorts, where wealthy Piedmontese and Lombard families built marvellous palaces.

Lake Maggiore is also called Verbano and it is the second lake by extension in the Pre-Alps. The western side is set in Piedmont, the eastherm one is in the Lombardy Region while the northern part is situated in the Swiss territory. The lake waters come and go by the Ticino river.

The hillside that encircles the Lake Maggiore protect the area from the winter winds and it boast a mild climate, basically similar to the spring, during all the year. Numerous city centers arize along its banks, often like the Visconti fortresses that wanted to ensure the strategic control of the zone, linked by historical roads as the ancient via del Sempione that, sliding along the western bank of Lago Maggiore, it connects the rise land in Novara and the main industrial city in Lombardy to the alpine passes, as the Simplon, all adjacent to Switzerland. This abundance of exchanges and communications has favorite the rising of magnificent hotels, lodges and holiday houses for the Piedmont and Lombardic entrepreneurs.

The main tourist centers in the western side are Dormelletto, Arona, Belgirate, Pallanza and Intra, but Stresa has to be mentioned above them all, for its enviable position facing onto the Borromee islands.
On the easthern side of the Lake Maggiore is set Laveno, a renowned center for its popular ceramics and in the outskirtses it rise the Sanctuary of Santa Caterina del Sasso.

Finally, it is certain that the main attraction on the Lago Maggiore are just the Borromee Islands, that they own their name to this noble family that in the 1500's truned it into a winning place of vacation. It was the idea of Carlo Borromeo the creation of the Isola Bella, Isola Madre and Isola dei Pescatori (the beautiful, the mother and fishermen islands).