It is the municipality where our accommodation facility is located; it has just under 5,000 inhabitants and is part of the province of Verbano Cusio Ossola.
The first historical source that mentions the existence of Stresa is a parchment from 998, in which the place is called “strixia”, a term of probable Lombard derivation which means “strip of land”.
The archipelago of the Borromean Islands is located in the middle of Lake Maggiore, to the west, in the arm of the lake called the Borromean Gulf, which faces
and opposite Stresa and Pallanza.
The archipelago consists of three islands, an island and a rock:
Isola Madre
Isola Bella
Isola Pescatori (Fishermen’s Island)
San Giovanni island
Rock of Malghera
The Colossus of San Carlo Borromeo (called the Sancarlone or, in the local dialect el Sancarlùn), is a huge statue located in Arona (NO) in the hamlet of San Carlo, on the Sacro Monte di San Carlo.
The granite pedestal is 11.70 meters high, while the statue measures 23.4 meters in height, so overall the monument measures 35.1 meters (equivalent to the height of a 10-story building). To get a comparison of the size of the statue, consider that the body (from feet to head) of the Statue of Liberty measures 46.5 meters. The length of the hand index is 1.95 meters.
Villa Pallavicino (also called Boffalora) is a construction of Renaissance art and stands outside the ancient walls of the city of Busseto.
Inside there is the Giuseppe Verdi National Museum as well as the zoological park
There is no certainty about the author of the project (probably Bramante or Vignola) and the Pallavicinos, who bought it in the thirties of the sixteenth century to make it a summer residence.
It was built at the beginning of the 16th century at the behest of Matteo Marri.
The botanical gardens of Villa Taranto are located in Verbania, in the north-eastern part of the Castagnola promontory on the western shores of Lake Maggiore, between the hamlets of Pallanza and Intra, in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (VCO).
The terraced gardens cover an area of about 16 hectares, which are home to tens of thousands of plants.
They are crossed by 7 km of avenues and currently have a wide reputation all over the world, as they are considered among the most beautiful in Europe.
Mottarone (1492 m a.s.l.) , also known as “The Mountain of the Two Lakes”, is a granite mountain between Lake Maggiore and Lake Orta
Despite being among the lowest peaks of the Alps, it dominates a spectacular panorama: from its rounded peak, you can enjoy a magnificent 360 ° view from the Maritime Alps to Monte Rosa, passing through the Po Valley and the “seven lakes” (Orta, Maggiore, Mergozzo, Biandronno, Varese, Monate, Comabbio).
It is easy to see, in good weather, the triangular peak of Monviso.
Lake Maggiore is located at a height of about 193 m s.l.m., its surface is 212 km² of which about 80% is located in Italian territory and the remaining 20% in Swiss territory.
It has a perimeter of 170 km and a length of 54 km (the largest of the Italian lakes); the maximum width is 10 km and the average width is 3.9 km.
The volume of water contained is equal to 37.5 billion m³ of water with a theoretical replacement time of approximately 4 years.
The catchment area is very large, equal to approximately 6,599 km² divided almost equally between Italy and Switzerland (the ratio between the surface of the basin and that of the lake is 31.1).
The maximum altitude of the catchment area is Punta Dufour in the Monte Rosa massif (4,633 m a.s.l.), while the average is 1,270 m a.s.l.
The basin is characterized by the existence of about thirty artificial reservoirs with a collection of about 600 million m³ of water, if released simultaneously they would raise the level of the lake by about 2.5 m. The maximum depth is 370 m (in the cryptodepression between Ghiffa and Porto Valtravaglia).
The major tributaries are the Ticino, the Maggia, the Toce (which receives the waters of the Strona stream and therefore of Lake Orta and the Tresa (in turn emissary of Lake Lugano and fed by the Margorabbia).
The major tributaries have a different flow pattern, while Ticino and Toce which have a catchment area at high altitudes reach a maximum flow in the period between May and October coinciding with the melting of snow and glaciers, the other tributaries have a strongly influenced trend. from precipitation. Minor tributaries are the Verzasca, Cannobino, San Bernardino, Giona and Boesio streams.
The only emissary is the Ticino which flows from the lake to Sesto Calende.
