Borreomean Islands - The Fishermen's Island

Lake Maggiore

Isola dei Pescatori - Lago Maggiore

Fishermen's Island or Isola dei Pescatori is the least-known island on Lake Maggiore and yet it is not even called like that.

Its true name is, Isola Superiore, the third of the Borromean islands, and while Isola Bella and Isola Madre attract a large number of tourists because of their gardens and palaces, Isola dei Pescatori attracts very few visitors and only if there is any time left. The tours arrive at the Islands as their final destination, right about lunchtime.

350 meters, (1148,29 feet) a village of restaurants and boutique hotels. Isola Bella and Isola Madre are the aristocratic islands, while this is the people's island. It is the only one permanently populated by 23 people. The island is 100 metres broad and 350 metres long, and it can be explored easily and only on foot. The island is inhabited by fishermen and restaurant owners who continue to serve the traditional Lake Maggiore delicacies, such as Risotto con il Pesce Persico (Perch or Freshwater Bass Risotto – click here to go to recipe) and freshwater fried fish, that was served during the recent G7 dinner.

The old village's narrow alleyways are lined with fifteenth-century buildings, souvenir shops, and vendors selling small treasures like raku ceramics and handcrafted soaps.

From dusk till daylight, the island is deserted. People travel from all around the world. Arturo Toscanini, after whom one of the restaurants in the neighbourhood is named, retired here; Hemingway mentions it in” A Farewell to Arms”, and approximately 5,000 people visit there each day. Or, better yet, every morning, because from the afternoon until the first boats the next morning, guests leave, shops close, silence falls, and only three or four locations stay open on the empty island.

There are very few people staying overnight, only the guests of the four hotels and the few residents, and the night is dark and quiet. The navigation stops, the buzzing in the restaurants drops down, and only the sound of the waves can be heard. A romantic hide away just an hour and a half from Milano, or a “slice of heaven” as one of our customers said, and he is absolutely right.

Arrivederci, (‘til we meet again)

Mic e Simo