stresa 🗺

I wrote a destination piece about Riva del Garda over two years ago. I had the thought of going there and it seemed like a nice way to get my head around the place. Now I’m going to Stresa instead. Why Stresa? Well I found out that one of my favorite bands Pure Reason Revolution will play at the 2nd day of 2 days prog +1. This festival happens in the small piemontese village of Revislate in the Veruno municipality. It is not far from the southern tip of Lago Maggiore. It is close to the border to Lombardy and the largest city close by is Milano. I soon found out that there is no good public communications. There are buses but not that often. It may be that there will something related to the festival but it is somewhat hard to find out. Also - renting a car is not a bad choice in Italy. Lots of nice roads to view and the opportunity to drive around Lago Maggiore also stood out. Obviously there are car rentals at Malpensa (the airport of Milan) and in central Milan but that is a bit boring so I searched for internationally branded car rentals around Lago Maggiore and the only one available was an Avis office in Stresa. Had a quick look and it looked like a nice place. So next I found an airbnb located close to the rental and not also not that far from the train station. All good. And it looks like a spectacular setting. (UPDATE after the fact: the image below is not of Stresa but rather Baveno - the next city up the coast. But it is shot from Stresa!)

Matteo Martinello, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

How to get there

By train: the obvious choice…. The line from Domodossola to Milano passes by here. Typically at least one train per hour. Domodossola is also the entry point when coming in from Switzerland over Bern. There are one direct train from Bern stopping in Stresa and several options with a change in Domodossola and sometime Spiez. It is a scenic route over the Alps so a nice option.
By ferry: There is a ferry line along the length of Lago Maggiore so it is possible to come in by ferry from Locarno in the northern Swiss end. There seems to be a couple of daily departures that takes a couple of hours to arrive in Stresa. From Arona at the southern end it is more like an hour to Stresa.
By car: The E62 (from Nantes to Genova) passes by in a tunnel a bit above the city. This is on the Milano to Domodossola part of the network and it is called A26 in the Italian system. This is the natural road to use when coming in from the south or the northwest over Bern. (You don’t really come from the west - maountains in the way - or the east where there is a lake….) In addition there is the SS34 passing through Stresa and following the shore of the lake up to the Swiss border. (SS stands for Strade Statali or State Highway.) This is the option to use when coming from the northeast like Zurich or Austria.
By plane: The closes international airport is Milano Malpensa. Obviously noone is flying these days but if you are this site recommends setting up a local taxi to meet you at the airport. There are also a few rental options at the airport.

Culture

It seems to me like the main attraction of Stresa - apart from its nice setting between the lake and the mountains - is the closeness to the Borromean Islands. Both Isola Bella and Isola Madre features now uninhabitated palaces filled with art and looks to form a good excursion. Read more in those wikipedia articles.

There are a couple of villas.

A series of old money hotels seems to be a thing and probably the reason why: Internationally recognised as the jewel of Lake Maggiore, Stresa is one of the most exclusive tourist destinations on Lake Maggiore. according to the lakes own site.

Where to eat?

There seems to be quite a few solid Italian options in the old city centre. Places like Caffè Torino and Osteria Mercato looks promising to me. There are some bars along the water - could be good for breakfast. But finding some nice caffe is seldom hard in Italy. Love it! For beers there are actually at least two places that seems to have some kind of selection. El Gato Bar and Bar Camelot. Will see about that. Well well - this is Italy so the food will not go wrong.

The mountain

There is a cablecar going up the mountain. This is splendid really. As I understand it it goes in two steps and you can hike between them if you’d like. Halfway up there is some kind of botanical garden that looks pretty cool.

written by fredrik at 2023-07-30