slow travel
eventually stagger into our little hotel I'm hot, have sore feet and just enough energy to put on my togs and immerse myself in the lake. Ahhh, it's cold, clear and just what my tired body needs. Later we summon the energy to stroll to
Ristoro Olina, a restaurant where I relish a rich, four-course Italian dinner knowing that, with 17 kilometres on the map for tomorrow, I'll use up every calorie. It's the biggest and most delicious breakfast
I have ever had, starting with fruit, moving to cakes, turning down the cooked breakfast but not the oven-fresh bread, with five different cheeses, olives, baby pickled onions and tasty tomatoes. This we wash down with fruit juice and rocket-fuel espresso. Despite breakfast, or may be because
of it, I feel like crawling back into bed, not walking up to the flanks of Mt Mottarone and down to Lake Maggiore. The first hour or two is challenging. I feel
weary from yesterday, the steep up-hill slog through a forest of larch, birch, oak and fir seems endless and Kath and I pretend not
to hear the ominous rumble of thunder. The forest path joins a country road and when we reach this point lightening zigzags across the sky, thunder roars and the first fat raindrops fall.
There is a shrine dedicated to baby Jesus
standing alone above the road where we shelter while the storm rages. We sit on the step, drink water, eat chocolate and text home while terrifyingly close lightening and thunder bounces from ridge to ridge. The storm lasts an hour and through it all a tiny bird sits on the top of a nearby fir tree and sings louder than seems possible for something so small. The rain stops, the sun is hot, the road
and forest are steamy and the air has a fresh after-rain smell. My morning lethargy is gone and I'm happy to be walking along the forest road, and happier still to enter the cobbled streets of Coiromonte. Being a new-country person I delight
in medieval villages and in some of the old houses in this one goats are kept on the ground floor and there is a spring-fed open-
OUR PICKS: Activities
• Eremo Santa Caterina del Sasso • Rocca di Angera
This 11th-century castle contains one of the largest doll museums in Europe. • Isole Borromee
• Isola Madre
Part of the Borromean archipelago and home to an exotic garden of plants, birds and flowers, this magical island is a botanical garden. • Borromeo Palace
A 17th-century palace featuring an Italian Baroque style. • Museo Dei Trasporti Ogliari
• Museo Internazione Design Ceramico
• Luino Market • Incadextreme • Museo Della Pipa Source: Trip Advisor
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