A Week in Italy's Alpine Lakes
/We recently returned from a 10-day research trip in some of the northern regions of Italy, much of which we spent exploring several of its wonderful subalpine lakes. We use this fact-finding to increase our breadth of knowledge, adding to the offerings to our client travelers who engage our itinerary crafting services.
Before we got up to the lakes, though, we drove up from our home in Lazio and spent the first overnight in one of our favorite little towns in the Chianti region. There we enjoyed walking the beautiful streets and stunning overlooks before dinner, where Matt got what he thought might have been the best tagliolini al tartufo that he’d ever eaten.
There was so much great food on this trip, and other things that were less great but certainly unforgettable. On a day trip to Mantova, we got a signature Mantovani dish at a highly-regarded local restaurant. This was a tortellini filled with pumpkin (which is not uncommon), apple mostarda (sort of a spicy fruit compote, getting a bit unusual), and… crushed-up amaretti cookies. That made the whole thing very sweet, somethign that we thought weould be a better dessert than a pasta plate. Still, we think it’s important and valuable to try local dishes of any araea we’re visiting, to get a feel for the place - the important thing is the experience of something new.
We still ate it all!
Some of the best dishes we had included fish dishes (often lakeside, of of course!), some amazing cheese plates, a house-made tempeh plate, believe it or not, and an unexpected “chicken Caesar salad” at a little deli-type of bistro in Cremona. And speaking of “unexpected”: One day near the end of the trip we decided to change things up and eat lunch at an Indian restaurant - right in the middle of a tiny town in the vast farming region of Emilia-Romagna. It was a nice change, and quite delicious! We even drank an Indian wine - the brand was “Kamasutra”.
We visited multiple dairy farms, at two of them we had lunch (hence the aforementioned cheese plates) and at a couple more we got some great gelato. One of those lunches served us a delicious rosè from a local winery; after lunch we happened to drive by a sign pointing to the winery, so we drove up and got a bunch of the same wine we had at lunch.
FANTASTIC SIGHTSEEING
The northern lakes have some of the most beautiful and interesting places to visit in Italy. One is the Santuario della Madonna della Corona, a church and monastery complex carved literally into the side of a precipitous mountainside. Another is the ossuary of Custoza - a collection of bones and skulls from fallen soldiers in a 19th-century battle that took place nearby - gathered together as a grim memorial.
And so many castles! Then there are the lakes themselves, of course, providing limitless beautiful views.
SPECIAL LODGINGS
One of the things we do on these research trips is stay in different places, sometimes very close to one another, so we can have more options to suggest to our clients. On two successive days, we switched from one lodging (that had a beautiful lakeside patio) to another one just a few minutes’ drive down the lake coast (which also had a beautiful lakeside patio!). On the day in between those two stays, we left the car and took a ferry to Monte Isola, Europe’s largest lake island. There we enjoyed a nice long walk around the perimeter of the island; we had a pre-lunch cocktail (during which Matt took a quick swim - it was so cold, that only lasted one minute!), and then a fantastic lunch at a perfect lakeside garden table.
This is why it pays to reserve special tables at special places in advance - and to know what to ask for.
Sometimes the tables come with friends!