What to do on my second full day in Stesa

Take bus to Orta San Guilio?

If you are hikers there are some nice hikes around Stresa. Milan would not be worth the train ride. Maybe book at private tour like a food tour.
Stresa seems pretty sleepy we stayed in Locarno as for us it seemed like there was more to do there.

Hi Rob, I love Stresa! I was there recently for the third time. Here’s some options besides your planned day at Isola Bella & Isola Pescatori.

Santa Caterina del Sasso is a quick ferry ride from Stresa. It’s on the ferry heading the opposite direction from Isola Bella.

I really liked the beautiful Villa Taranto gardens. To get there, you take the ferry past the Borromeo islands. If doing it, I wouldn’t combine it with Isola Bella because it would be garden overload.

You might want to check this website. They have some bus excursions from Stresa. http://www.stresatravel.com/

Are you coming from Malpensa? There’s the Alibus from Malpensa that will take you directly to Stresa,

visit the Borromean Islands on the first full day plus maybe Verbania as well

you must visit gardens much faster than me, Rob.

When we were there in 2019 we spent 2 full days exploring all over the Borromean Islands.

One more comment - I always switch to this hotel my last night in Stresa - Boutique Hotel Elvezia. Its a wonderful small hotel - It’s out on the tiny island of Isola Bella and such a wonderful atmosphere to have the island almost to yourself in the evening. They serve nice dinners, and I reserve one of the balcony rooms to enjoy the evening lights over Isola Pescatori fading into night.

If interested, I would head to Isola Pescatori your last day after dropping off your suitcase at the hotel, explore & have lunch. Then come back to Isola Bella and enjoy the villa & gardens during the afternoon.

https://www.boutiquehotelelvezia.it/

One other hint. Buy your ferry tickets from the actual ferry company which is located inside the white building where the ferries arrive - across from Hotel Milan Speranza Au Lac (or you can see it from there). Otherwise, you can end up on some crazy little boats that “ferry” you around.

If you do go to Orta take the walk up to the basilica to see the 21 chapels among the trees but I don’t think this looks very practical by public transportation. https://www.lagomaggiore-tour.it/en/orta-en/the-sacro-monte-of-orta.html

Personally if I wanted to see Milan I would take a 2h train ride each way and enjoy my day, Google maps is still showing it as a 1h trip on the RE4 but they aren’t the best source.

The Cannobio stop on the ferry looked amazing and I’m sorry that we missed that on our train to Locarno and ferry back to Stresa day.

If you would consider a trip into Switzerland—you could be at the base of the cablecar up to Bettmeralp in 1 hour 18 minutes if you take the 9:20 EC train to Brig from Stresa. Change there to an eastbound regional train departing 9 minutes later, and you will be in Betten, the base station for the cablecar, in 15 minutes more. It is a car-free village like Muerren. Hike up the ridge for a view of the Aletschgletscher, or ride the gondola to the top of the Bettmerhorn for a more expansive view. It’s all good.

We are just back from a 2 week trip to NW Italy and SE France. For part of our trip, we stayed at an AirBnB in the hamlet of Bee (Verbania) - not too far from Stresa. We loved the area. For sure see Villa Taranto Gardens. We absolutely loved wandering the gardens. Taking a boat around to the Borromean Islands as others have mentioned. The Palace museum on Isola Bella is well with the admission price. We also stopped at Isola Superiore for lunch - which did not disappoint.

Consider taking the cable car and chair lift to the top of Monte Mottarone for magnificent views of the lakes.

There’s a bus from Stresa to Lake Orta but it stops running on September 11.

When I visited Lake Maggiore (mid September 2017) I had planned a day trip to Orta San Giulio, but the bus had stopped running, so I went via train.
I don’t recommend going via train though.

You may be interested in reading about this part of my trip report here and here

Enjoy your trip!

Unfortunately, the Mottarone cable car is no more, it caused a deadly accident last year...cabin crashed to the ground!

Such a horrible tragedy!
I had not heard about it…

Thanks for the ideas everyone, we might be fairly spontaneous on this day. We will have already been to Switzerland for about 2 weeks by the time we come to Stresa, so might enjoy some less planned out days. The train work on the railway line to Milan is apparently for most of September, and we hope to be back in Italy in fall of 2023 as it is. We picked Stresa as we probably wont be that far north on next years trip.

I spent a delightful half day in Mergozzo a few years ago. It is a small lake and eponymous town just off a northwest arm of Lago Maggiore. The town is beautiful and there is a great walk/light hike up to an outcropping with a stunning view of Lago Maggiore and around. We had a great meal at a casual restaurant along the walk from the town to the lookout, but I'm afraid I can't dig up the name.

Something a bit different...don't know about the availability of public transit but I'd be surprised if there wasn't a bus.

We lived in Verbania for 2 1/2 years. We do miss the lake. Agree that taking the train to Milan and back with track work is a waste of time. Those trains always ran at least 15 minutes late with no track work.

If the ferry is running from Stresa to Fortress Angora at the south end of the lake across from Arona, that was a great place to see a castle in Italy. They had 8 or 9 rooms with a large doll collection that was really interesting. From the very top you can see the peak of the Matterhorn. If the ferry to Angora stops at Catarina di Sasso monetary, it’s worth seeing (an hour us plenty of time)

There is a hike from Stresa to Beligrate that was great. You can either take a ferry or train back to Stresa.

Be sure thoroughly understand ferry and train options before hopping around the lake, the schedule is very confusing as some ferry’s only run certain days or times of the year. Otherwise you could be waiting hours for a ferry that doesn’t come.

You could spend a whole day taking ferry past the Boromeo islands to Verbania.

1. Get off in Pallanza. Walk left toward Suna, have a lakeside cappuccino. Walk up Via Ruga and find the bakery on your left. Best croissants in Italy, Either at the Pallanza ferry terminal or across from the bakery is a tourist office where you can pick up a map of Verbania with highlights of places with a bit of. history.
   
2. Walk back to the lake and follow the pedestrian path to your left as you face the lake.. pop in the little park, if it’s lunchtime, maybe a panini from the caffe.
3. Continue on the path around the Peninsula. Interesting houses, villas, and ruins. At the point of the peninsula where the road turns toward Intra, look up on the hill behind you and you see what used to be the Grand Hotel Eden, destroyed by fire in the 1970s, then abandoned. Likely completely covered in vines.
4. Next stop. Villa Taranto Gardens. If you haven’t had lunch, have lunch before the gardens. Continue walking toward Intra. Check out the church with the green dome at the top of the narrow shopping street.
   
5. Next, optional but worthwhile since the Gondola in Stresa is no more. Take the ferry across the lake from Intra to Laveno. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk to the base of the bucket Gondola. Takes you to the top where you can have a glass of wine and aperitif. Elevation is 1100 meters and has a great view from the south end of the lake towards the north. If time allowed, we took every visitor up on the gondola.
6. Take ferry back to Intra. Then ferry to Stresa. Be sure to know the time for the last ferry so you don’t miss it. You can take the ferry from Intra to Stresa.

If you need any help with ferry schedules or planning your day, happy to help. If interested I can did up links for everything mentioned.

Rob,
Thanks to you for posting this and all those who answered. We’re also using trains and are going to be in Stresa in late October for 3 nights / 2 whole days and these suggestions will supplement RS and the official tourist webs. We propose 1 day hiking / walking and 1 day being a tourist using the ferries and hopefully just sitting enjoying the views and the ambiance, depending on the weather. I won’t be hiking in heavy rain such as we encountered a few years ago in Aosta although it was interesting.
Then we’re off to the Dolomites which is an all day train trip for 3 nights.
I’m looking forward to our trip.

Rob: How did you find out about the train delays from Stress to Milan? I have booked trenatalia tickets from Stress, through Milan to Verona for Sept. 15 and having read your above text, I am now wondering if I should take some other means of transportation to Milan. My ticket from Milan to Verona is on a freccacia (special fast train) and so if I miss that train because of a delay from Stress to Milan, I will be out of luck. Where did you find the information on the train delays please?

Karen, thanks for more ideas about this.
Ksb, I found out about the delays while researching trains from Geneva Montreux to Stresa and noticed the times were slower in September and there was no direct Geneva Milan connection anymore. the Swiss SBB website says work on the track around Sesto calenda in September thru Sept 18. After that things look back to normal on SBB, but maybe their info is less accurate than Italian sources?

There is no discrepancy between SBB and Trenitalia on this.

Look at Trenitalia for 15 September. They are not showing the direct Frecce train from Stresa to Milan at all. It is either a bus, taking 1 hour 42 minutes, or a Trenord route involving 2 changes and taking 2.5 hours. By Sept.19 it is back to the normal Frecce train.

So ksb1949, if you are departing from Stresa on the 15th you need to take that schedule into account if you don’t want to miss your train to Verona. Or spend the previous night in Milan instead of Stresa.