Lago Di Orta

This week was another quirt busy week.  It was end of the month with all of those reports due on top of the other daily activities.  Plus Friday was consiglio.  The strange thing was that we attempted to go to the grocery store several times during the week but put it off thinking that we would need to go on Thursday to buy food to cook for lunch for Consiglio.  Thursday was May 1, which we found out is another holiday here in Italy, labor day.  So when we head out to the grocery store and every thing is closed, even the bakeries. We began to panic because we had to feed Hawaiian Hay stacks to 40 on Friday. We did find the big stores at the mall open in Rozzano so we were saved.

Saturday we decided to go to Lago Di Orta - a small lake about 1 hour west of Milano.

Here is a hotel that we drove past as we came into town

Which way would you go?

 We turned right towards the lake and saw a lovely little town with access to a gorgeous island on the lake.

 We walked down to the town of Orta.  Very narrow walking streets. Nice shops and restaurants.  I walked down to the beach and took this picture of the island.

 The lake was beautiful

 They had this full sized rocking horse - Even I could ride this one.

 In the main piazza we saw this picture of Fairies.  My grand daughters would love this.

 We got on a boat and went over to the Island which has a convent in its center.

 These carvings were in a very fancy boat house on the island.

 From the island looking north to the alps.

 Zoomed in to the north

 There was a walking street around the island one house in from the waters edge.  It took about 7 minutes to slowly walk around the whole island.

 Here is a little guy on one of the columns

The bell tower on the island had a full scale of bells that played for us at noon.

Island as we left on the boat

Here is the town of Orta as we approach on the boat.  

  We found a place to have lunch in town and then bought some little cookies for the ride home.  It was a wonderful place for a visit.