Stresa, Isola Bella & Verbano

Today was another great day. The sun wasn't as hot, although I didn't know that when I got dressed for breakfast. We went down to where it was served, eventually discovering it to be the front of the hotel, all white with gold gilded and blue pleather seats. We ate off silver spoons and the coffee came in its own individual silver pots. I was feeling very naked in such a surrounding, in short shorts and a light, almost see-through shirt. All the other patrons had to be over 65.

After I got changed quickly into my blue striped dress. We got the ferry over to two islands, Isola Bella and Verbano.

Verbano, the first, was a labyrinth of narrow alleys and staircases amongst picturesque wooden shutters with peeling paint.

Isola Bella was even more beautiful with an old church containing some saint's bones from the 1700s, a private castle and amazing terraced gardens we didn't get to see. We walked right around the island and couldn't stop taking photos. I also accidentally used the toilet without paying the attendant, but took a photo of the door next to my yellow handbag. We got a gelato and caught the next ferry back.

We went to get a sandwich from a well-humoured man 'I speak English' who cut sandwiches from enormous baguettes, already prepared. We ate them on the waterfront and admire the view. Mum, Dad and Lucy got a coffee, Hugo and I went home for some time out of the sun.

At 3.30pm it had begun to cloud over as the forecast had predicted but we decided to go for a swim at Regina Palace anyway. It was a huge circular pool with a shallow pool spiralling around. It was probably 2 metres deep. All the umbrellas were stripey and the towels yellow. The guests, overweight. One, a priest, came over and discussed Rosmini College in Auckland for a while.

The rest of the afternoon was watching people in straw hats eat on balconies covered in hanging vines, listening to clanging church bells (they played 'here comes the bride' for a tourist wedding), admiring the terraces and turrets of houses further up the hill.

We had dinner in the back courtyard of the Old Town. It was more authentic food (no plastic wrapped food!) and the waiter was nice. Vines covered the roof with hanging lanterns, but it started to spit so they covered it. Pizza and tiramisu again. A haggler came into the restaurant selling roses and begging for his three children. The first I've seen in such a resort/tourist town.

Now it's growing darker, the first time I've stayed up after the sun in a while.