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Fact File Getting there: Cathay Pacific flies from Auckland to Milan via Hong Kong every day. www.cathaypacific.co.nz Walking holidays: Inntravel features 85 independent walking holidays in Europe providing something for everyone, from gentle coastal strolls to high mountain hikes. An Inntravel walking holiday includes accommodation, walking maps and notes, luggage transfers between hotels, breakfasts and some dinners. Inntravel arranges train travel to and from Milan. www.inntravel.co.uk air laundry with 10 stone tubs. The piazza is on a knoll with the church at one end. The church bells merrily chime the tune of "This old Man" to announce one o'clock. It would be nice to sit down and soak up the ambience but, ironically, the café is closed for lunch. The next four kilometres is through forest, skirting around Mt Mottarone. At times we walk paths, spongy with leaf litter, under a dense tree canopy. Other times the forest is more open and the path is edged with lush vegetation – blackberry, nettle, and summer flowers. Butterflies flutter from pink flowers – small orange ones, tiny grey ones and others with big speckled wings. And tadpoles scatter from the leaf- rot edges of a small pond when they feel our footfalls. Near little mountain streams we pass long-deserted farmhouses, their roofs fallen in but stone walls still strong. Large trees, now grown in inappropriate places, block doorways and grow in the middle of the rooms and up through the collapsed roof. This is the joy of walking, slow travel, having time to immerse the senses, to hear the birds, smell the flowers, watch the butterflies and truly be here. Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore and home base for two days, is a different world to the quiet rural one in the hills above it. Grand turn-of-the-century hotels line the lakeside road and the Borromee Islands, four of them, with ancient castles and elegant old villas sit prettily not far from shore. The backdrop of snow covered mountains near the Italian boarder add to the picture, as does the vintage and beautifully varnished boats speeding tourists back and forth to the islands. This is a place to see and be seen, and is proud it has been so for centuries. Napoleon and Josephine stayed in the palace on Isola Bella as did Charles and Diana, and Ernest Hemingway recuperated in the still-Grand Hotel after the First World War. Stresa is too good to miss so Kath and I choose a lay-day instead of the Inntravel walk in our programme. We explore the islands, tour through the bottom two floors of the castle (the Borromeo family still use the top floor as their summer residence) and explore the 10 tiers of its statue and fountain-filled formal gardens. We have lunch in a waterside restaurant, snooze in the heat of the afternoon, cruise the shops in the early evening and have dinner in the piazza. It's a day full of palaces, shops, boats and full-on tourist bustle. At the end of it we are ready for the slow lane again and are looking forward to walking for three more days through the quiet Italian countryside. Liz Light, lizlight.co.nz All photographs supplied by Liz Light The new VOYAGER Ultralite collection takes the effort out of your travel with luggage that won't weigh you down. A frameless design and robust construction combine to bring you luggage weighing from only 2kg's. Visit www.voyagerluggage.com for stockists D Es veet rntywiai ho en re... Ultral i C te ion olect l