At this point, we were over halfway through our journey around Italy. We continued our time in the North by visiting the lakes’ region. The area was about 10 degrees cooler than central Italy, and in early March…it could be fairly cold if the sun wasn’t out.

Getting off the bus, we loaded small trams, like at Hershey Park or in Pisa, and traveled to the boat launch area. After a short ride, we landed on the island of San Giulio on Lake Orta. We had time to explore a small church and walk around the cute streets by the water.

We grabbed coffee in the sun and tried the gelato at the nearby shop. We heard that if the pistachio gelato was bright green, the shop did NOT use natural ingredients, so every gelato shop we saw required a view of the pistachio. This shop had the palest pistachio we had seen, so we had to try some. It…was…amazing! Just like eating a nut only in gelato form. We tried a few other flavors as well, and they were all amazing, making this little shop on this little island my favorite gelato in Italy.

Our boat taxi took us back to the parking area and we enjoyed a short ride to the town of Stresa at the edge of Lake Maggiore, another cute area to explore.

Most of the family opted to stay in Stresa, while I boarded another boat taxi to the Borromean islands. The sun was shining and it was warm enough to enjoy some time on the water. Our first stop was “Fisherman’s Island”. Since it was not yet peak season, many locations were not open, or were undergoing seasonal repairs and updates. We had lunch at a place called Chez Manuel and then enjoyed wandering around the few tiny streets.

After lunch, we took the boat to Isola Bella, or “beautiful island”. The island is privately owned by the Borromeo family who acquired many of the local islands throughout the 16^th century! The mansion was closed, but during limited months of the year, visitors can tour the inside.

The next day we traveled to Verona, the legendary setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Walking through the city center we passed the city’s colosseum. Smaller than the one in Rome, this perfectly preserved structure is still used today!

Not far away, down a side street, was Juliet’s courtyard, complete with her statue at the end. It is said that visitors who approach the statue and touch Juliet’s breast will find true love, so there seems to be a never-ending line of willing participants.

We had time to walk around, grab some coffee and pastry, and view Roman ruins in the middle of the road before returning to the bus for our trip to Venice.

At the port, we boarded our water taxi to St. Mark’s Square. The day turned cloudy, cold, windy, and unforgiving. After our history lesson with the local guide, we were taken to the Murano glass factory…the only one in the Venice island collection. We sat in the front room and watched a short demonstration of an artisan creating an amazing blown glass creation right in front of our eyes. It only took a few minutes and it was mesmerizing to watch the artisan create a horse figurine.

Moving further into the factory, we walked through display areas and learned how the beautiful creations were made, what elements were mixed with the glass to turn an item into beautiful colors, and how the families in the collective pass down these skills through the generations.

We braved the cold to walk around a little before stopping for lunch and coffee to stay warm. The prices in Venice were expensive, but it was too cold to stay outside for long! A few of us backtracked to a small cannoli shop (which turned out to be my favorite in Italy) to stock up on delicious flavors before heading to the meeting point at the dock. I highly recommend the amaretto and chocolate varieties. The weather was too cold to go on a gondola ride, but we grabbed some great photos and made the best of the day.