The Italian Lakes

Beautiful Bellagio has been a favoured summer resort since Roman times, when Pliny the Younger holidayed here. Its peerless position on a promontory jutting out into the centre of Lake Como made it the object of much envy, hence its tumbledown fortifications and Como-esque church of San Giovanni, built by Como medieval master artisans. While the Romans planted olive and laurel trees, their descendants surrounded their villas with carnival-coloured camellias and rhododendrons. In summer, lovers come to promenade among them while modern hedonists launch into the blue lake from the Lido deck.

The Borromean Gulf forms Lake Maggiore’s most beautiful corner, and the Borromean Islands harbour its most spectacular sights: the privately owned palaces of the Borromei family. On Isola Bella, the grandiose Palazzo Borromeo presides over 10 tiers of terraced gardens, a gilt-encrusted Throne Room and a shell-encrusted grotto, while on Isola Madre white peacocks stalk English-style gardens around an older family residence complete with a neoclassical puppet theatre designed by La Scala’s set designer. In summer, the aristocratic Borromei family reside in the palace.

Founded in the late 18th century, Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera and Bergamo’s Accademia Carrara housed the teaching aides of the day: a roll call of Italian masters including Titian, Tintoretto, Botticelli, Raphael, Caravaggio and the Bellini brothers. The masterpieces, many of which pack tremendous emotional clout, number in their hundreds and represent the stunning arc of Italian artistic development between the 15th and 18th centuries. A major renovation in the mid-2010s has elevated the Accademia Carrara back to the world-class facility its 600 works of art merit but without Uffizi-like crowds.

Imagine a landscape caught between fantasy and reality, a green theatre where statues might easily move, fountains and sculpture embody encoded messages, and the air is full of strange noises as water trickles down walls and gurgles in shell-encrusted grottos. No, this isn’t Shakespeare’s magical, marooned isle in The Tempest, but the fabulous gardens of Villa Carlotta on Lake Como. Given to a Prussian princess on her wedding, the villa is stuffed with Canova statues, while the 8-hectare gardens bloom with Europe's finest collection of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias.

Once part of the Lombard duchy of Anghera, Locarno made its name in 1925 with the Treaty of Locarno, a noble attempt at fixing Europe’s borders. Since then the town has taken a less serious bent, devoting itself to pleasure: cultivating a waterfront of extravagant beauty, running cable cars up the mountain to frescoed chapels and stunning viewpoints, and hosting a multitude of summer festivals, including the International Film Festival with shows screened nightly beneath the stars in Piazza Grande.

Maverick Mantegna (1431–1506) was a carpenter’s son who married into the acclaimed Bellini clan in Venice, painted a golden altar in Verona, frescoed the Belvedere chapel in Rome and finally became court painter in Mantua in 1460. His famous illusionist frescoes in the Camera degli Sposi (Bridal Chamber) are the undisputed highlights of the huge Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. Commissioned by the powerful House of Gonzaga, they helped cement Mantua's position as a autonomous city state separate from Milan and Venice and an important centre for Renaissance art.

There’s no shortage of fresh air, breathtaking views and urban appeal in this medieval Lombard town, perched atop a hill at the foot of the Orobie Alps. The city’s defining feature is its double identity. The ancient hilltop Città Alta (Upper Town) is a tangle of tiny medieval streets and Lombard Romanesque architecture: its sturdy Venetian walls were recently listed as a Unesco World Heritage site. Meanwhile, down below in the more modern Città Bassa (Lower Town), micro-brewers experiment with hops and nascent 'coffee labs' challenge the hegemony of Illy and Lavazza.

Whether it’s your virgin visit to Milan or your 50th, your first glimpse of the city’s cathedral with its organic ferment of petrified sky-piercing pinnacles and buttresses will never fail to elicit a gasp of awe. Under the ever-watchful gaze of the golden Madonnina, you can also wander the rooftop, feeling just a little closer to heaven. It’s said that you can see the Matterhorn on a clear day, but given Milan’s notorious haze, you’ll probably have to call in favours from Our Lady to guarantee that.

Ringed with a range of spectacular Alpine peaks reflected gloriously in dozens of glassy glacial lakes, northern Italy is a paradise for hikers and strollers alike. The more populous southern towns of Stresa, Como and Salò sport flower-fringed promenades from where pilgrim paths and mule tracks disappear into the hills. One of the best is La Dorsale del Triangolo Lariano, which snakes along a high ridge above Lake Como (take the funicular up to Brunate to reach the trailhead) and connects the glamorous town of Como to bijou Bellagio.

Even those normally immune to arias will be swept up in the occasion. On balmy summer nights, when 14,000 music lovers fill Verona's Roman Arena and light their candles at sunset, expect goosebumps even before the performance starts. The festival, which runs from mid-June to the end of August, was started in 1913 and is now the biggest open-air lyrical music event in the world. It draws performers such as Placido Domingo and the staging is legendary – highlights have included Franco Zeffirelli's lavish productions of Carmen and Aida.

For anyone interested in the fall of a frock or the cut of a jacket, a stroll around Quadrilatero D’Oro, the world’s most famous shopping district, should be on your lifetime to-do list. And even if you don’t have the slightest urge to sling a swag of glossy carriers over your arm, the people-watching is priceless. Bespoke-suited silver foxes prowl, gazelle-limbed models lope up and down, and aggressively accessorised matrons crowd the bar at Pasticceria Marchesi and Pasticceria Cova for short blacks and some obligatory flirting with the baristas.

When Leonardo da Vinci was at work on The Last Supper, a star-struck monk noted that he would sometimes arrive in the morning, stare at yesterday’s effort then promptly call it quits for the day. Your visit may be similarly brief (and it’s no mean feat nabbing a ticket in the first place), but the baggage of a thousand dodgy reproductions and one very dubious best-selling novel is quickly shed once actually face to face with the astonishing beauty and enthralling psychological drama as Christ reveals one of the apostles will betray him.

Sailors, windsurfers, kitesurfers and paragliders come to test their mettle around the waters of Riva del Garda, on winds first mentioned by Virgil. The Pelèr swoops south from the mountains in the morning, catching the sails of speedmeisters until noon, when the gentler Ora puffs north from the southern valleys in the afternoon and early evening. Experts fine-tune their experiences on some of the 20 other winds that skim across the lake. The breezes are also utilised by paragliders, who ascend Monte Baldo by cable car before floating back down to Malcesine.

From Oltrepò Pavese in the east to Leonardo da Vinci’s favourite Valtellina vintages in the foothills of the Alps and Italy’s finest fizz in Franciacorta, Lombardy offers up miles of vineyards perfect for touring and tastings. Most famous of all is the blockbuster red Amarone produced in the region of Valpolicella using a 6th-century process developed by the Greeks. Sample some of the best at the beautiful Villa della Torre, designed by Giulio Romana and now part of the august Allegrini winery.