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Italy shares two of its six great lakes, Lugano and Maggiore, with its neighbor to the north, Switzerland.

Yet even the Swiss concede that those gorgeous freaks of geology, those microclimatic masterpieces and manifestations of mad, magnificent botany (sun-drenched, palm-fringed, with snow-capped Alps in the background) are embodiments of a dolce vita that is fundamentally Italian. Como and Garda are the showstoppers – they need no introduction as home to several of the world’s greatest hotels (indeed, home to what is currently rated the greatest of them all, Passalacqua, on Como). Spare a thought, however, for their less familiar yet no less lovely cousins. The gardens and palazzi of the Borromean Islands, on Maggiore, are beyond imagining; and on a moonless night you could navigate the entire Piedmont region by the light of its Michelin stars – Antonino Cannavacciuolo’s restaurant at Villa Crespi, on little Lago Orta, alone has three of them.

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