Borromeo family palaces show staggering wealth
Bill Gates, eat your heart out.The chief executive of Microsoft Corp., the world's richest man, spent $81 million building himself a 20-room cyberpalace in Seattle. The mansion, finally finished last spring, comes complete with a reception hall that seats 100, a swimming pool with music piped in underwater, a 20-seat movie theater, an indoor gym and outdoor "sports court," and a video wall with 24 projectors and monitors.
But for all Gates's wealth and power, his lifestyle pales next to the Borromeo family, a centuries-old dynasty of counts, cardinals, and warriors who tended to marry well and live even better. A tour through the Borromeo family's two palaces here in Lake Maggiore - located in the fairy-tale setting of Italy's Lombardy lakes region - offers a look at just how staggeringly overwhelming was wealth and influence in another time. Gates and Trump and Buffet might have been lucky to have gotten an invitation to this table.
Italy's northern lakes are a place to dream. Caesar came here to escape the rigors of empire-building. Napoleon and Josephine slept in one of the Borremeo's enormous canopied beds. Writers from Stendhal to Hemingway to Dickens have flocked here for hundreds of years.
It's easy to see why. A series of lakes, from huge Garda on the east to tiny, overlooked Orta to the west, are ringed by the craggy Alps and covered in lush gardens and forests. Renaissance cities and villages cling to the lakefront and the mountain peaks.
Where to start? Almost anyplace.
We picked Lake Maggiore and the three tiny islands just off Stresa, the town that was the setting for Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms." While the constant pounding of tourist feet has turned Hemingway's picturesque town into a disappointment, the Borromeo islands are anything but.
Two of the three islands remain in the Borromeo family, and the palaces and gardens are open to the public. The third is Isola Superiore, an ancient fishing village that today is more of a tourist stop on the way to the palaces.
Like much in Italy, it is easy to be put off by first impressions here. On both Isola Superiore and Isola Bella, home of the grandest Borromeo palace, visitors are greeted by a gaudy string of souvenir shops selling everything from cap guns to Denver Nuggets caps.
Don't give up.
Beyond the pizza stands, the narrow stone walkways that pass for streets take you to another place and time. The ocher-colored stucco and stone houses are packed one against the other on this little piece of rock, the walkways covered in wisteria. Fishing boats line the shore; the mountains disappear in the haze.
A reader of guidebooks might pass up this island because of the souvenir stands and hordes of tourists who frequent them. A smarter traveler would take one of the 12 rooms in the Hotel Verbano, the island's nicest hotel (about 200,000 lira or about $125 a night), and wait for the crowds to leave on the last ferry. There is absolutely nothing to do here at night except look out at the moody waters of the lake and dream - and that is exactly the point.
The next day, take the five-minute ferry ride to Isola Bella and then onto Isola Madre and marvel at how the Borromeos lived their lives.
Constructed by Carlo III and Vitaliano VI from about 1630 to 1670, all of Isola Bella was built, piece by piece, to resemble a ship adrift in Lake Maggiore. The bow, never fully completed, is a long spit of land jutting into the lake, the stern a spectacular pyramid of 10 terraced gardens.
Inside the palace is an endless maze of enormous rooms, decorated lavishly by bigger-than-life works by some of the most sought-after artists of the day - and only two of the floors of the palace are open to visitors. Every foot of the massive gardens is stuffed with huge, ornate sculptures and vegetation from all over the world. This is not life on a modest scale.
Maybe the best stop of all is the island that visitors most often pass up. Exhausted by ornate Isola Bella and the bustle of Stresa and Isola Superiore, many never make it to the far more quiet Isola Madre. That is a mistake.
Built by Renato I, Isola Madre is on a more human scale and more livable than Isola Bella. The rooms of the palace are warm and friendly. The house features puppet shows for the children; the people who lived here had fun. The gardens are dense and alive with white peacocks and other exotic birds that run free. There is not a souvenir shop, not a hotel on the island.
Renato was our kind of Borromeo.
There is much to the lakes region beyond Maggiore and the Borromeos, of course.
Lake Como is perhaps the best-known of all the lakes. Long known as the "drawing room of Italy," it is a place where Milan's rich retreated and built fabulous villas on the lake. It is still one of the fanciest places in the world to do nothing.
Dozens of fabulous little towns ring the lake, and it is hard to go wrong with any of them. Como itself, just an hour north of Milan, can be jarring as you make your way through the industrial outskirts, but the city retains its charm inside the ancient walled district.
A center of silk-producing since the 14th century, fashion buyers from all over the world descend on Como twice a year, in late March and early October, to see what's new in silk fabrics. With its shops and market, the city makes a fun, if pricey, day trip. It's also a good place to get a ferry to almost anywhere on the lake.
With Como's bustle, you're better off picking one of the lake's more intimate towns to base your stay. Our favorite: Bellagio.
The town's chief advantage is that it is not directly on the way to anywhere. You can take the ferry from Como, or, if you dare, drive the 45 minutes of harrowing mountain road. The scenery is unparalleled, the driving downright scary as you jockey with Italian buses for a few feet of road on the mountainside.
Bellagio is a tourist town plain and simple, having spung up from the success of its first hotel in 1825. The town has remained small - you can walk the entire place in 30 minutes - but it is big enough to have a variety of nice old shops, bars, and restaurants to pass the day.
The town is famous for its incredible villas. A short walk from Bellagio's town square is the Villa Melzi, built in the 19th century by Franceso Melzi, a friend of Napoleon, and still inhabited by the family. The garden, open to the public, was the region's first so-called Italian "English" garden. Bellagio's other famous garden is the Villa Serbelloni, occupying land once owned by Pliny the Younger and now in the hands of the Rockefeller Foundation; the gardens are open for tours twice a day.
This is clearly a place to be rich - or at least dream that you are. The best place to live that dream, at least for a day or two if your budget allows, is from the terrace of the Grand Hotel Villa Ser-bel-lo-ni, Bellagio's only five-star hotel.
The spectacular hotel overlooking the lake was originally built by Count Frizzoni as a gift for his wife. The countess hated the place (the filthy rich are truly a race we will never understand), and the count sold it off almost immediately. In 1872, with two new wings added, it opened as Bellagio's second luxury hotel, eventually forcing its archrival, the Hotel de la Grande Bretagne, out of business 25 years ago.
This is the best of life as it was and should be. But this dream doesn't come cheaply: A double room with full board (the only way to go) will cost you about 780,000 lira (about $480) a night in high season.
Lake Orta is tiny, the smallest of the Italian lakes. Located to the west of the others, it is largely ignored by those who come to the Lombardy district. That's its greatest appeal.
Orta, the town, is filled with cramped cobblestone walks, Renaissance buildings, and hidden gardens. Its central piazza, where a local market has been open on Wednesdays since 1228, is a painting from a storybook. Green hills and mountains frame the lake.
In the middle of the lake is the tiny island of San Giulio, which has a 12th-century Romanesque basilica at its center and small villas crowding nearly every foot of the island. You can take a 10-minute ferry ride to get there, but better yet, rent a rowboat and take a swim when you get to the island.
You'll find no clearer waters in all northern Italy.