Guide Tour of the Borromean Islands of Lago Maggiore, Piedmont, Italy

The Borromean Islands are a group of three small islands and two islets in the Italian part of Lago Maggiore, located in the western arm of the lake, between Verbania to the north and Stresa to the south. Together totalling just 50 acres (20 hectares) in area, they are a major local tourist attraction for their picturesque setting.

The archipelago is formed by the monumental Isola Bella which houses the seventeenth-century Borromeo palace and its spectacular gardens, by the picturesque Isola dei Pescatori, by Isola Madre – known for its rich botanical garden. of rare plants – from the Isolino di San Giovanni in front of Pallanza and from the rock of the Marghera.

The name derives from the Borromeo family, which started acquiring them in the early 16th century (Isola Madre) and still owns the majority of them (Isola Madre, Bella, San Giovanni) today. It was the Borromeo, prestigious family originally from Florence, to start their transformation, building villas with elaborate gardens when they became owners in the fourteenth century. Even today the family owns Isola Bella, Isola Madre and the two rocks known as Castelli di Cannero, where there are ruins of buildings dating back to medieval times.

Lake Maggiore has been since the eighteenth century, and for the following centuries, the favorite place for the holiday of the great families of the Lombard nobility (in particular the Borromeo and the Visconti) who came here to spend their holidays and who therefore built it sumptuous mansions. Immersed in the wonderful and evocative waters of Lake Maggiore, the Borromean Islands have fascinated their visitors for centuries. Loved by Ernest Hemingway and is where the story of “Farewell to Arms” takes place, here is also the exclusive sanctuary loved by the British royalty, Napoleon and Josephine had a suites here.

Main Attractions
Terre Borromeo is the brand identifying the cultural and natural sites associated with the Borromeo family in the distant past and includes: Isola Bella and Isola Madre in the archipelago of the Isole Borromee; Parco Pallavicino in Stresa; Parco del Mottarone along the slopes of the mountain of the same name; Rocca di Angera, on the Lombard side in the province of Varese, and the Castelli di Cannero located in the Upper Verbano.

The Borromean Islands founded a small worlds with landscapes that enchant therefore, but also history and art, enrich these lands and make the lake a magical place, so much so that it was defined by the French poet Montesquieu as “the most beautiful place in the world”.

Isola Madre and Isola Bella, also known as “the sisters”, are popular destinations for tourists who come to visit them for the splendid palaces and gardens. Isola Bella, named for Isabella, countess Borromeo, was originally a largely barren rock; after first improvements and buildings, opened by count Carlo III between 1629 and 1652, his son Vitaliano the 6th built an attractive summer palace, bringing in vast quantities of soil in order to build up a system of ten terraces for the garden. The unfinished building displays paintings by Lombard artists and Flemish tapestries.

Isola Bella, famous for the care and variety of their plant architectures, made up of over two thousand varieties of different species. On Isola Bella – named after the wife of Carlo III Borromeo, Isabella d’Adda – visitors are delighted by Palazzo Borromeo with the halls and rooms on the main floor, the caves, covered with stones and shells, and the garden that houses a multitude of exotic plants. The salons, the music and weapons rooms, the gardens, the ten overlapping terraces (the Italian garden is embellished with water games and the statues of Carlo Simonetta) were inhabited by bothNapoleon Bonaparte (1797) to whom a room is dedicated, which Mussolini made it a representative office during an international conference in 1935.

Isola Madre, the largest of the three island, is also noted for its gardens, which have been maintained since about 1823 in an English style. Its palace, though uninhabited, is splendidly furnished with 16th- to 19th-century Italian masterpieces and paintings. Isola Madre is home to gardens that offer visitors an idea of the ancient splendor of the family. Considered to be among the finest examples of topiary in the world, it is also home to several species of birds, including unique white peacocks, golden pheasants and parrots, the lake’s first camellia, and the impressive Kashmir cypress.

Isola dei Pescatori or Isola Superiore is now the only inhabited island in the archipelago. It has a fishing village, which in 1971 had a population of 208. The pretty alleys and the characteristic market where you can buy local handicrafts are very popular with tourists who in the summer (during August 15th) go there to watch the evocative procession of illuminated fishing boats carrying the statue of the Assumption in procession around the Island.

Isolino di San Giovanni is located just off Pallanza (today part of Verbania) to the north. The island of San Giovanni and the seventeenth-century Palazzo Borromeo, for many years the residence of the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini, are private and not open to visitors.

The Scoglio della Malghera is a small islet of Lake Maggiore. The tiny uninhabited rock of Malghera, with an area of only 200 square meters, lies between Isola Bella and Isola dei Pescatori and offers bushy vegetation and a small beach. Reachable by boat, it also has a small beach where the seagulls of the lake take refuge and is half covered with vegetation. Sometimes it is called as Isolino degli Lovers for its small and romantic beach.

Isola Bella
Isola Bella is one of the Borromean Islands of Lago Maggiore in North Italy. The island is situated in the Borromean Gulf 400 metres from the lakeside town of Stresa. It measures 320 meters long and 180 meters wide and is largely occupied by the Italian garden of the Borromeo palace, which occupies the south-eastern coast of the islet.

Isola Bella, together with the nearby Isola Madre, has contributed to making Stresa one of the Grand Tour destinations. The island is a natural treasure made even richer by human intervention. Isola Bella is dominated by its sumptuous Baroque palace, along with a luxuriant Italian-style garden, which reaches a height of 37 metres and is laid out on ten terraces. Many parts of the palace are open to visitors: richly furnished rooms and opulent salons embellished with priceless artworks.

Although the islet of Isola Bella is not very large (it measures just 320m in length by 180m in width), it holds a real jewel of beauty: the gardens of Palazzo Borromeo. With their wonderful alternation of parterre and terraces placed at different heights, and skilfully alternating with statues, obelisks, large stairways, these gardens represent a real attraction for many tourists who come to visit them every year. At the entrance to the park you will be greeted by the Teatro Massimo, a large amphitheater that occupies the very center of the island.

The formal Italian-style baroque Garden on Isola Bella is world-famous, in many places raised on artificial terraces like an elegant ship of stone and flowers sailing through the intense blue of Lake Maggiore. The nucleus of its complex theatrical structure, around the Teatro Massimo, is represented by ten superimposed terraces which form a truncated pyramid, surrounded by parterres on different levels, linked by stairways. The colossal unicorn, obelisks, statues and grottoes, the two water-wheel towers and other architectural elements astonish visitors.

The garden is full of flowers and exotic plants of great rarity, which grow thanks to the particularly mild climate of the Borromean Gulf. Here the soil and the climate of the lake offer an ideal habitat to allow species and varieties to grow on the island. Everything on the island has been designed to create a scenic effect, including the “Theatre” constructed at the end of the superimposed terraces, dominated by a statue of a Unicorn, the heraldic emblem of the Borromeos, which is flanked by statues representing Nature and Art. The huge, extraordinary garden is further decorated with ponds, fountains and a plethora of statues dating from the second half of the 17th century.

The island gives its best in spring and summer, seasons in which you can admire these wonderful gardens in bloom, but even at the beginning of the autumn season with the shades of foliage the glance is enchanting. White peacocks saunter amongst the magnificent architectural features recalling ancient Gods, mighty trees such as the camphor, citrus trees, rare for this latitude, and the splendid collections of roses, rhododendrons and camellias. The peacocks symbolise a place redolent of the eternal beauty of a Paradise.

Isola Bella is one of northern Italy’s premier attractions in Milan or nearby. The design idea of the island was to resemble a gigantic ship rising out of the water and that’s exactly what the island looks like, with the stern formed by the garden and its 10 sloping terraces and the prow formed by the tip of the island and the dock. The architects transform this rocky little island into something magnificent, an incredible Baroque palace with Italianate terraced gardens. The palace (Palazzo Borromeo) is fascinating, encapsulating 400 years of family history, as well as its incredible portrait gallery and its gardens, some of the most spectacular ones in Italy.

Palazzo Borromeo on Bella Island
The Palazzo Borromeo, a place of Baroque art suspended over the water. Inside there are halls where you can admire authentic furnishings of the seventeenth century, paintings by artists of the time, marbles, neoclassical stuccos, all with breathtaking windows and openings overlooking Lake Maggiore. A princely Baroque residence that has continued to change over the centuries, from the beginning of the works in the mid-seventeenth century at the behest of Vitaliano VI until the creation of the Salone Nuovo in the post-war years with Vitaliano X.

The visit to the palace is an incredible journey between art and history that winds through the over 20 rooms, among which the Throne Room, the Queens Room, the Napoleon Room, where the French general slept during his living room on the island, and the salon with the splendid Flemish tapestries in silk and gold. And then again the Berthier Gallery with its mosaic of over 130 paintings and the magnificent caves made with pebbles and splinters of tuff, stucco and marble which in addition to an ornamental function also had the purpose of protecting guests from the summer heat.

A fascinating itinerary between art and history accompanies you through its over 20 rooms. Heart of Palazzo Borromeo, the Galleria Berthier is a mosaic of over 130 paintings including masterpieces and, following a practise that is recurrent in other noble collections of the period, a number of copies of the great masters of the past of the calibre of Raphael, Correggio, Titian and Guido Reni. Unique settings are the Throne Room, the Queens’ Room, the Tapestry Hall and the Caves, born to amaze guests by transporting them into a magical marine world.

Inside there are paintings by Cerano, they are The Judgment of Paris, Europe kidnapped by Jupiter transformed into Taurus, The triumph of Galatea, by Salvator Rosa, by the Flemish Muller called il Tempesta (artist hosted for a long time by the Borromeo, his patrons, who had also saved him from the trial of attempted murder of his wife), by Nuvolone, by Francesco Zuccarelli, etc.

To remember the gallery of tapestries, so called for its huge Flemish tapestries, six in all, of the sixteenth century, in silk and gold, whose recurring theme is the Unicorn, emblem of the Borromeo. In the very particular environments of the caves, covered with stones and shells of an infinite variety of types, there are also archaeological remains of the prehistoric Culture of Golasecca.

Italian-style baroque garden
The Teatro Massimo is the most important monument in the garden of Isola Bella. Statues, obelisks and fountains are perfectly integrated together with the vegetation of the ten scenic terraces, at the top of which rises the statue of the Unicorn, the heraldic symbol of the Borromeo family. Since 2002 the gardens of Isola Bella, together with those of Isola Madre, have belonged to the prestigious circuit of the British Royal Horticultural Society.

All around the Theatre is a glorious display of rare flowers and plants: the centuries-old camphor tree, Gunnera manicata, known as the giant rhubarb – the leaves of which can reach two metres in diameter -, the perfumed sweet Osmanthus, the extremely rare Halesia diptera with its flowers that seem like snowflakes, the star anise and the Mexican pine.

During its blossoming period the Parterre of Azaleas is enchanting, and the Garden of Love is a joy for the eyes, composed of boxwood hedges creating green embroidery that is visible from the height of the terraces. Camellias, espaliers of roses in May, oleanders in June and citrus trees and panicled hydrangeas at the height of summer all enliven the Italian-style garden of Isola Bella, where white peacocks roam freely.

Isola Madre
Isola Madre, at 220 m wide and 330 m long, is the largest island of the Isole Borromee archipelago which falls within the Italian part of the Alpine Lake Maggiore, in the Province of Verbano Cusio Ossola, Piedmont. The island is occupied by a number of buildings and architectural structures and is especially well known for its gardens. In the past it was known as Isola di San Vittore and later as Isola Maggiore.

The available historical sources indicate that in the middle of the ninth century the island had a church, a cemetery (whose existence is recalled by the current garden’s so-called scala dei morti, or “Staircase of the Dead”). It is known for certain that olives were cultivated here; the produce may have been employed for sacred purposes.

Through marriage, the Island of San Vittore was transferred in 1520 to the Trivulzio family, and it was only in 1563 that Renato Borromeo regained possession of the property, to which he gave the name Isola Renata. New impetus was given to the construction of the Palazzo, Archbishop of Milan. The late 16th-century appearance of the Palace that we still see today dates back to this period. The gardens progressed significantly thanks to architect Filippo Cagnola, who in 1710 immortalised staircases, pergolas and vases with great precision.

At the end of the 18th century Isola Madre had taken on the appearance that is substantially conserved today, and it began to be considered a place of peace and repose thanks to its mild climate and luxuriant nature. At the beginning of the 19th century, the garden was transformed into a romantic garden, according to the taste of the time. Almost all the terraces of the island disappeared, giving way to perspective views framed by tall trees. Cultivations also change and rare and exotic plants were introduced, collected by Vitaliano IX, a botany enthusiast.

Palazzo Borromeo on Madre Island
The Palazzo Borromeo was built in the 16th century, and the choice has been made to give precedence to the private dimension of the family. A perfect, sophisticated trompe l’œil enchants visitors. The style is elegantly sober: a succession of loggias and rooms, furnished with tapestries, furniture items and paintings coming from various historic dwellings owned by the Borromeo dynasty in Lombardy. Porcelains and liveries, family paintings and canopy beds decorated with sumptuous brocade compose a fascinating fresco of courtly life. Everywhere, from the loggias or from the large windows, it is possible to enjoy charming views of the lake and the botanical park.

Stage sets, designs, marionettes, entire scripts, musical scores, payment receipts: a genuine home puppet theatre where the Borromeo family entertained their guests. From the mid-17th century onwards the performances involved members of the family, friends and the servants themselves. The collection exhibited is among the most extensive and best conserved in the world. The creator of the sets and backdrops was Alessandro Sanquirico, scenographer of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, who worked for the Borromeos in around 1830. Together with the marionettes, also on display are various mechanical devices that were used to create fog, fire and stage noises: the special effects of over two centuries ago.

When you enter the Venetian Lounge, positioned at the sunniest point of the building, it will seem like being under a pergola supported by columns interwoven with plants and flowers. Mirrors, Murano chandeliers and furnishings recall the taste of the Serenissima.

The English-style garden
The Palazzo Borromeo is surrounded by impressive gardens, the Giardini Botanici dell’Isola Madre, covering an area of eight hectares whose construction all’Inglese (in the English style) began in the late eighteenth century on the site of a citrus orchard. Particularly prized is the scala dei morti, or staircase of the dead, which in recent decades has been embellished with an important collection of Wisterias.

The botanical heritage and the strong exotic impression have made it what Gustave Flaubert called “the most voluptuous place I’ve seen in the world”. The current English-style botanical park was created in the early 19th century and since then it has been the abode for plants and flowers brought back from trips to far-off lands and acclimatised thanks to the mild and favourable temperatures.

The full-blown transformation took place thanks to Vitaliano IX, an enthusiastic naturalist, who had seeds, botanical rarities and plants in vases sent there from all over the world. Roses, peonies, azaleas and verbenas, sage and laurel were planted. In the Noria Meadow: apricot, cherry, apple, pear, fig and plum trees. Ashes, willows and walnut trees near to the Palazzo. In the large meadow facing towards Suna there is an English-style garden with hibiscus, calycanthus, mulberry and pomegranate trees, as well as oaks and rhododendrons, maples and cypresses.

Towards the end of the 19th century, Vitaliano came into contact with passionate researchers, thus giving rise to a period of exchanges of seeds and plants with other important gardens. And through correspondence with Joseph Pentland, the Scottish botanist, traveller and diplomat, numerous exotic species reached the island that the diplomat considered suited to growth on the banks of Lago Maggiore. Among these, Wellingtonia, the Giant Redwood, from Oregon, and seeds of the tallow tree that arrived from Northern China through one of his intermediaries.

Today the garden on Isola Madre is unique for its rare plant species from every part of the world. Continuous, exuberant flowering, the result of the endeavours of expert gardeners, continually renovating every corner of the park: from the magnolia groves to those of bamboo, from the perfumed pergolas of wisteria to the espaliers of citrus fruit, from the parterres of ancient camellias and rhododendrons to the overflowing pools of waterlilies and lotus flowers. Eucalyptuses, palms and banana trees coexist with the collection of conifers and maples. At the height of summer ibiscus, morning glories and bougainvilleas bring out the emotion of a trip through time.

The mild climate has allowed the establishing of amazing flora hard to find in other locations: rare plants coming from the most diverse latitudes and spectacular blooms make it a real earthly paradise. The terrace of proteas is unique; these are prehistoric flowers that are the emblem of South Africa, found here in their ideal environment. Completing a setting of such harmonious beauty are multi-coloured birds roaming freely in the park. Silver and golden pheasants and white peacocks walk in tranquillity on the lawns and among the hedges.

There are around a hundred varieties of hibiscus to admire in the fabulous setting of the Isole Borromee, particularly on the more exotic Isola Madre. Summer is the season of the delicate tropical flower that brightens up the gardens until the end of September with its five petals shaped like a funnel, from pink to red to yellow. It is easy to recognise them, also on account of the pistil, generally very pronounced and longer than the corolla.

Some examples also can be found on the terraces of Isola Bella that slope down towards Lago Maggiore. In this timeless location, in addition to hibiscuses, oleanders and citrus trees also make a fine display of themselves in a competition over which are the most luxuriant flowers. On the Isole Borromee, a collection of red Hibiscus rosa sinenses flowers are also cultivated in flowerbeds.

Isola dei Pescatori
sola dei Pescatori (meaning Fishermen’s Island) is an island in Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. As the most northerly of the three principal Borromean Islands it is also known as Isola Superiore and, with a population of 25 in 2018,.The island is about 375 metres long by 100 metres wide. A narrow street running along its spine is joined by cobbled alleys to the promenade that encircles the island. The promenade is frequently flooded and the houses built against it are constructed to allow for this.

Tourism has become central to the economic life of the island as its picturesque charms have made Isola dei Pescatori a popular destination, particularly for day-trippers, but also for more extended visits. In addition to the hotels, restaurants and gift-shops, there are boutiques selling craft products, holiday homes, and a small fishing museum in the old elementary school.

The church of San Vittore (Victor the Moor) retains traces of an ancient chapel that was probably constructed for the monks of Scozzòla (an abbey of San Donato di Sesto Calende founded by Liutardo, bishop of Pavia, in the mid ninth century). The church was previously dedicated to S. Gangolfo (Gangulphus), whose veneration is linked with the Abbey of San Donato.

Isolino di San Giovanni
The Isolino di San Giovanni is a small island belonging to the Borromean group of Lake Maggiore, one of the main subalpine lakes of northern Italy. It is situated some way to the north of the others in the group, 30 metres west of the shoreline of Pallanza, a frazione of Verbania. It is part of the frazione Pallanza.

The earliest extant record of the island is from the year 999, when it was identified as Isola di Sant’Angelo, referring to a chapel dedicated to Saint Michael found within its castle. In the middle of the twelfth century the island was in the possession of counts belonging to the Barbavara di Gravellona family. The Borromeos made various attempts to obtain the Isolino di San Giovanni in the late sixteenth century with the aim of establishing a Barnabite college. They finally acquired it in 1632 and embellished it with a palazzo and gardens. Today the Borromean palazzo reflects for the most part its nineteenth-century aspect. A well-known resident during parts of the 1930s and 1940s was the conductor Arturo Toscanini.

Surrounding area
With Lagomaggioreboat, you can visit the Borromean Gulf, a splendid area located on the Piedmontese shore of Lake Maggiore between Verbania and Stresa and which includes, besides the wonderful Borromean Islands, the hilly area near Verbania. The particular beauty of this Gulf lies in the perfect combination of art and nature which characterizes the shores of this portion of the lake.

Rocca di Angera
In a strategic position to control traffic through the area, the historiographical tradition associates the events of Angera with the Visconti family and its consolidation after the victory in the Battle of Desio in 1277, celebrated in the frescos of the Sala di Giustizia. Rocca di Angera. With the Visconti, the Rocca was at the centre of important reconstruction and enlargement works that were to be protracted for more than a century.

In the period of the Ambrosian Republic, the Council of Nine Hundred of the city of Milan ratified the acquisition of Angera, of the fortress and its parish from Vitaliano I Borromeo for the sum of 12,800 imperial lire on 18th January 1449. The Rocca di Angera thus became the dwelling and the symbol of the political structure of the family, to which it still belongs today.

In 1623, when Cardinal Federico Borromeo was honoured by Phillip IV of Spain with the title of Marquisate of Angera, the fortress was in a state of considerable abandonment. The expert that the cardinal had sent to the site suggested proceeding with the essential repairs, but a short time later, at the initiative first of Giulio Cesare III (1593-1672) and then of Antonio Renato Borromeo (1632-1686), the Rocca was extensively restored. In the second half of the 17th century, leading Milanese painters were used to carry out the decoration (among others, the Santagostino brothers, Antonio Busca and Filippo Abbiati). In a climate of stubborn opposition to the Spanish Governorship, the Borromeos, with the creation of the cycle of canvases devoted to the Fasti Borromeo [Splendours of the Borromeo Family] and the portraits of historical personalities of the dynasty (1673-1685), made the Rocca one of the symbolic monuments of the family’s history, intended to illustrate the antiquity and power of the family.

In recent years the Rocca di Angera has been the object of meticulous restoration work at the wishes of Princess Bona Borromeo, who has wanted to return the Castle to its former splendour and give visitors access to its sophisticated collections, creating the largest Museum of Dolls and Toys in Europe. The latest restoration campaign of the Ala Scaligera took place in 2017, and it here that contemporary art projects take shape today.

The spectacular Rocca di Angera is the perfectly harmonious accumulation of five different constructions, built starting from the 11th century and until the 17th: the Torre Castellana, the Ala Scaligera, the Ala Viscontea, the Torre di Giovanni Visconti and the Ala dei Borromeo. It is impossible not to be astounded by the dimensions and grandeur of this building and by the solemnity of the Sala del Buon Romano, the Sala delle Mitologia, the Sala delle Ceremonie, the Sala di San Carlo and the Sala dei Fasti Borromeo, where large canvases, portraits and furnishings take you back to ancient times.

The Sala della Giustizia [Justice Room] is worth the visit alone; it was entirely frescoed soon after the Battle of Desio in 1277 by an anonymous master, who takes his conventional name, the “Master of Angera”, from this endeavour. The cycle of paintings is structured into three overlapping registers and the main historical narration of the exploits of Ottone Visconti against Napoleone della Torre is developed in the main one.

In the Sala delle Ceremonie [Ceremonies Room] it is possible to admire a series of fragments of frescos from the first half of the 15th century coming from Palazzo Borromeo in Milan, which were brought to the Rocca di Angera in 1946 after bombing destroyed the palazzo in the city. Created by the school of Michelino da Besozzo, they are one of the most important examples of Lombard Late Gothic painting with non-religious subjects.

The Museum of Dolls and Toys is structured along 12 rooms located in the Ala Viscontea and Borromea, alongside two single-themed sections: one devoted to dolls coming from non-European cultures and the other to the automatons of the 19th and 20th centuries. Founded in 1988 by Princess Bona Borromeo Arese, it is distinguished for the quality, variety and rarity of the collection, making it the largest in Europe in the sector.

Over one thousand dolls made between the 18th century and today, clothed and accompanied by precious outfits. On display there are also toys and models of furniture items coming from the collection of Roberta della Seta Sommi Picenardi: masterpieces by skilled craftsmen, who executed these prototypes with the same expertise that they used for the actual furniture items. The automaton section, inaugurated in 2002, brings together specimens created above all between 1880 and 1920, produced mostly in France and Germany: true animated wonders, the movement of which was accompanied by musical airs, often taken from well known operas.

Parco Pallavicino
Villa Pallavicino became a private residence in 1855, when the area was purchased by Ruggero Bonghi, statesman and man of letters. There followed the transfer of ownership to the Duke of Vallombrosa and in 1862 the purchase by the noble Genoese Pallavicino family, who enlarged the estate, built roads for vehicles, decorated the park with statues, transforming it from a simple dwelling into the splendid nineteenth-century neoclassical-style villa that still stands on the hill today.

But it was Marquise Luisa who completed the work, in 1952, welcoming animals here from every corner of the world to build an exceptional zoo. In 1956 the Pallavicinos decided to transform their marvellous garden into a wildlife museum that was open to the public. Since 2017 the Parco Pallavicino has been part of the circuit of the Terre Borromeo.

On the Stresa lakefront in the direction of Belgirate, the 18 hectares of park extend where the botanical soul and the fauna live in harmony. Over 50 species of mammals and birds are housed here, and over time some wild specimens saved by the forest ranger have found a home in the park and which would not survive if released back into the wild. The flora specialists work to enhance the rich botanical heritage that the unique climatic conditions of Lake Maggiore offer. The Flower Garden is an example of the creativity and commitment that gardeners put into the care of greenery every day.

Mottarone Adventure Park
At Mottarone Adventure Park, adventure and fun combine with the desire to rediscover nature. Located 15 km from Stresa and just 2 km from the Borromea Private Road exit, it is the ideal destination for spending an exciting day with family and friends in the woods of Parco del Mottarone. Enjoying the view of Lake Maggiore and the Borromean Islands, the Mottarone Adventure Park features 3 routes with different levels of difficulty, starting from 6 years.

Tree Climbing: for those who want to experience the thrill of climbing on trees. Everyone can try their hand at this test, starting from the shortest climb it is possible to challenge each other to the last hold on the highest tree. Thanks to the magnetic descenders, in case of no grip, each descent to the ground is softened: the system in fact provides for the release of the rope at a reduced speed, to avoid any tearing.

Baby Area: a space for the little ones, from 3 years old, includes 2 courses of 15 and 16 exercises with bridges, walkways, ladders, sloping walls, etc.

Net Experience: network paths at a height of 3 meters connected to houses positioned in the trees, dedicated to children from 3 years old, where they can have fun immersed in colored balls.