Lake Orta
Hotels Lake Orta
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Fact and legend
"Orta, the Lord's watercolour, seems painted on silk, with the Sacro Monte
towering above it; its noble promenade flaked by close buildings, the silent
piazza and the Austere facades behind the foliage of the horse-chestnuts,
and, facing it, the Isle of San Giulio, resembling Dante's airy purgatory,
hesitant between water and the heavens": this is how Piero Chiara, the "writer
of the lakes", exhalted the silence of Orta and its Lake. A retreating silence
upon which the locals have spun their ancient legends. Stories to
be told, without raising the voice, while chatting on the edges of the Lake
letting eye and thoughts wander. "It is often said that the main piazza in Orta
is like a drawing-room. It is almost impossible to resist the temptation of
spending hours there, as in olden times, just like in one of Goldoni's plays;
sitting in the cool air exchanging the odd word now and again with the person
next to you, lazily letting the eye roam from the Palazzetto della Comunith to
the central porticos in front of the shops; from the landing stage and the odd
sailing boat about to disappear behind the island; and farther off the houses at
Pella; and from the other distant shore in the perspective of the shining mirror
of water". These are the impressions of Mario Bonfantini, writer and one
of the most esteemed Gallist in the literary world; with a couple of strokes of his pen he traced simply and
affectionately this portrait of the piazza at Orta.
At Lake Orta, there is tourist accommodation available in hotels, farm holiday, farmhouse, residence self-catering accommodation, mountain chalets, b&b, rooms for rent, holiday homes, camp sites and tourist villages.
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