The Stresa lakefront and Piazza Marconi

Stresa was built for people arriving by steamer, and the lakefront still shows it: a level walk of clipped plane trees, iron railings and belle-époque hotel fronts running from the public gardens to the pier at Piazza Marconi. Nothing on it is more than a few minutes from anything else.

The view is the point. Isola Bella sits almost dead ahead, Isola dei Pescatori slightly left, and the mountains close the lake behind them, which means that with your back to the water you get the entire postcard behind you without anyone climbing anywhere.

Light runs east to west across the lake, so mornings give you clean side light onto the promenade and the hotel façades, and the last hour turns the water into a sheet of gold with the islands as silhouettes. Midday is flat and busy.

The promenade is fully paved and level all the way, which makes it the one spot in the Borromean gulf that works with a pram, a wheelchair, or grandparents who are not going to walk garden terraces.