Lago Maggiore

For my last weekend in Europe I met up with my Swedish friend Carolin Olsson in Italy.  She had been holidaying down on Lago Maggiore with her family around the Swiss town of Locarno, so I flew into Milano and we met up in Verbania on the Italian side of the lake.

On Saturday morning we took a ferry to the islands in the middle of the lake.  Our destination was the island of Isola Bella, which consists of a tiny, cramped village on one side and a huge palace on the other with its beautiful (and a little bit quirky) gardens.  We had a quick walk through the palace but the impressive bit is definitely the gardens.

On the way back to the airport, we even had a few hours to kill in Milan and went clothes shopping through some of the arcades (see photo above).