Lago Maggiore lies on the border of Italy and Switzerland, two countries which share this long and narrow lake. During our six-day stay we drove once around the lake in several steps. Our hotel was situated in Colmegna, very close to Luino, a major city on the Italian east side of the lake. From Stuttgart we drove 470km, which took us about six hours. Instead of going through the St. Gotthard tunnel, one of the few north-south channels via Switzerland, which is usually very busy and traffic jams were expected, we took the St. Bernhardino pass and tunnel. This route took us up to about 2000m and

You can find the Orta lake south-west of Lago Maggiore. It seems to be another large lake, but it is much smaller than Lago Maggiore. Although the lake is quite touristic, the atmosphere of its surroundings remains very neat.
The most charming place by this lake would be Orta San Giulio. It is easy to park your car in the parking lot on the outskirts of this town and to walk down to the lake shore. The town also offers lots of restaurants, shops and cafes, so here is an ideal place for a short break.
We also drove around in the mountains along the lake. We went up to Quarna, a local mountain village famous for its tradition of wind instrument manufacturing, where we visited the instrument museum.
From Luino it took us a long drive of about 2 hours around the south side of Lago Maggiore to go to Lago
d’Orta. On the way back we made a short cut by taking a ferry from Verbania to Laveno.

Valle Verzasca goes up north from the north part of Lago Maggiore, east of Locarno. It is a valley in the middle of great nature. Houses in this mountain area are entirely made of stone, built in the traditional way. Even their roofs are covered with pieces of natural stone. We did a two- hour short hike and drove up the valley to its end in Sonogno at 919m above sea level. A must for those who wish to observe some beautiful original Swiss

Cannobio on the west side of the lake.
Cannobio is a cute little town with interesting shops and cafes at the lake-side - a perfect Italian afternoon in a relaxed environment.

We spent the next day  in Switzerland again. First we drove to Paradiso, just next to Lugano, where we took a cable car up to the 912m high Monte San Salvatore. From there you have a magnificient view on the lake and Lugano ciy. However, we had a further plan: a four-hour hiking along the mountain ridge lead us towards Carona and then finally to Morcote. It was such a nice hike and must have been much easier than the

other direction, as it mainly went downwards (although Chiko felt her knees rather “wobbly” afterwards...). The way was well marked so that you never have any doubt to be on the right track.
Having reached Morcote we had a short look at this peaceful little Swiss lake town, much more quiet compared to the rest of the tourist area and enjoyed a quick lunch before boarding a boat which brought us back to our car in Paradiso. We had a very sportive but still enjoyable day, and had a very good sleep that night :)

a relaxing holiday. You can swim in the lake, enjoy Italian food and just relax on the sun terrace. We also found the place ideal as a starting point for our excursions. Still, there were a few negative aspects, unfortunately... We had a tiny room (which could obviously be avoided by booking a