Monday, April 25, 2011

Stresa, Isola dei Pescatori, and Isola Bella, Italy

Kimberly is here visiting (hurray!), so on April 23rd we drove to the town of Stresa, which is located on Lake Maggiore. Stresa was a very pretty town, but I didn't take any pictures of it. All of my pictures are of two of the islands we visited.

We took a city motor boat service out to the islands. I was amazed at how many people would come pouring out of those boats! It was like a clown car without the overcrowded feeling.

Our first stop was the Isola dei Pescatori, which is a working fishing village. With lots of stalls selling stuff to tourists! I love those stalls!
Here are Kimberly and Scott standing at the water's edge. I'm not quite sure why they are posed that way...
Next we took the motor boat to Isola Bella. This is a picture of the palace gardens.
This is a picture of the palace - Palazzo Borromeo - built in the 1600s.
We enjoyed touring the palace, which was filled with gigantic marble rooms and interesting stone grottos. But the gardens were even more spectacular. So many flowers! Such vibrant colors! I took pictures of some of them. Sadly, I don't know what any of them are!


Can you spot Kimberly behind the bush? Her coat blends right in!
I love the way they shaped this tree.
I love even more this picture of Kimberly and Scott under the same tree.
We were thrilled to see these beautiful white peahens sitting on the lawn.
And then we saw this beautiful peacock perched way up high on a statue. Actually, we heard him first. Peacocks are very loud.
But none of those compared to this beautiful guy - showing off his tail feathers. He must have stood that way for 10 minutes. And what was interesting was that he just kept turning around in circles. He stayed in the same spot the whole time, he just kept rotating. Sadly, none of the peahens were even paying any attention to him! But we sure appreciated the show! We actually saw two different peacocks with their tail feathers out. Talk about our lucky day!
After that, we took the motor boat back to Stresa, where we ate lunch, did some shopping, and had gelato. It was a great day trip, made even better by having Kimberly here.

4 comments:

Rhonda said...

Oh my gosh! I've wanted my whole life to see a peacock spread it feathers and have never been lucky enough to see it in person. Plus the pure white is gorgeous. So glad you can have Kimberly there to join in the fun.

Court said...

I love all the fantastic color!

Leslie said...

Beautiful, Beautiful!

Kristie said...

Glad Kimberly was able to come again! I think your time in Italy is more fun than you want to admit. :)