Lake District of Italy
 2002
by JHD

Twenty-two friends of The Objectivist Center gathered together to explore the Lake District of Italy in 2002.  We stayed at the Lido Palace Hotel in Baveno (left) on Lake Maggiore, and from there we visited Stresa, Orta, Milan, Como and Bellagio.  There were also idyllic boating trips on Lake Maggiore, Lake Como and Lake Orta, in addition to lectures on the history of this region of Italy, contemporary Italy, opera and Michelangelo.  We also met with locals who answered questions about what contemporary Italian life is like. 

By the way, the picture on the left was the view from my balcony.

We saw LOTS of villas, each with their own story, built long ago by very wealthy families (obviously).  Many were along the shore and were really estates.  Some were on their own islands; many of them are now hotels.

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We toured several gardens, part of the villa estates.  Even though it was November, there were still lots of blooms.  The climate in northern Italy is Mediterranean, as the Alps block the cold weather from coming southward.  There were even palm trees growing in places.

In many of the smaller towns we visited, the streets were narrow and winding.  There were no front yards or porches or sidewalks.  The front door opened right onto the street.

Even the businesses that were not on the town square were on narrow streets.

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It was more "big city" in Milan, but still very grand.  Milan is cosmopolitan, and one of Italy's fashion capitals.  In Milan is the Castello Sforzesco, a fort, which contains Michelangelo's last sculpture, the Rondanini Pieta.  He died before completing it.

A highlight of Milan is the Duomo, or Cathedral, which took hundreds of years to build.  There is so much gingerbread, statues and carvings at the top, which hardly anyone can see.  It was very impressive, but depressing to me on the inside.  I walked up the stairs to the roof - 271 steps - and the building kept going up after that.  Some of the fancy work reminded me of building sand castles where you drip wet sand to make a spire.

We saw lots of churches, many rather dark on the inside.  Most of them had art on the walls and ceilings, and lots of statues.

During some of our free time, a group of us went on a ride in the mountains and took a little hike.  The scenery was really pretty.

Several nights some of us gathered around the piano.  The friends made on these trips are one of their highlights.

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