Lake Orta after RS Tour

How many days will you be at Lake Orta for your tour? We spent an afternoon at the main western city, toured the beautiful island just off shore and hiked to the unusual pilgrimage site above the town (Google it for images). If your tour gives you ample time to do these three things and you aren't keen on some beautiful down time at the end of your tour you could probably move on to someplace your tour doesn't get to at all and you want so see while you are in Italy.

The village of Orta San Giulio, which I presume is the one the tour covers, takes just half a day to visit. I don't know how long the tour stays there but it's probably enough. If the tour doesn't cover nearby Stresa on Lake Maggiore I would move there for 3 nights.

We got to Orta San Giulio in time for lunch which we had on our own. As a group our guide paid for a boat ride on the lake which included a stop on the island to see the church and wander a bit, then returned to the boat dock/main piazza in Orta San Giulio. It was rainy and we were staying an extra night so we did the pilgrimage site the next morning. We felt we had seen everything by noon the next day but had committed to the extra night. It might have been different if the weather was better. There were some hiking groups wandering around town so I presume there are some trails nearby but our weather precluded looking for any of them!

Thanks, Mona for information on things to do and see at Orta San Giulio. There's not much on it in the RS guidebook, and I haven't gotten much further in my research yet. Pam, I figured you'd be able to help. I had no idea how much time the tour actually spends in the town. Getting there by lunchtime leaves quite a bit of the day, even allowing time for the group farewell dinner.

Thanks for the suggestion of Stresa, Roberto. I'll look into it. Someone on another thread also mention Bergamo, so I'm going to check that out, as well.

The main reason to go to Stresa is to see the Borromean Isles. They are quite interesting.