Monte Isola

For sixteen days in June and July 2016, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation *The Floating Piers* connected Monte Isola to the mainland at Sulzano via a saffron-yellow walkway on the water. An estimated 1.2 million people came. The island is quieter now, which is the point. It sits in the middle of Lake Iseo, roughly equidistant between Bergamo and Brescia, and it is Italy's largest lake island, and by most reckonings the largest in central and southern Europe: 4.5 square kilometres of forested hillside, olive terraces and shore villages, with a peak at 600 metres above sea level. Around 1,600 people live across twelve hamlets, the main ones being Peschiera Maraglio on the eastern shore, Carzano on the south, and Siviano in the north-west. The Santuario della Madonna della Ceriola crowns the summit, visible from the lake in every direction.

The island is, in practical terms, car-free. Private vehicles are not permitted for visitors; residents have limited access to mopeds and the island runs a small local bus, but the overwhelming experience is of walking or cycling. There are no traffic lights, no petrol forecourts, no car parks. You arrive by passenger ferry, operated by Navigazione Lago d'Iseo, from Sulzano on the eastern shore (under ten minutes, ferries roughly every twenty minutes in season) or from Iseo town or Sale Marasino. You leave the same way.

The economy that shaped the island for centuries was not tourism but net-making. Monte Isola's fishing families have made nets since at least the thirteenth century: by hand in houses and yards at first, then in small workshops, eventually in mechanised retifici. The first net factory, the Retificio Mazzucchelli, was founded in 1857. The tradition survived the shift from artisanal fishing to industrial production: nets made here supplied the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and several family businesses still operate. The dried freshwater sardine (actually agone, a lake fish) remains a Slow Food Presidium product.

The prime months are May, June, September and the first half of October, when the lake is calm, the olive terraces are green, and the ferry crowds from Brescia and Bergamo are manageable on weekdays. July and August bring full summer pressure. The ferries fill, the village bars run queues. The trails up to the Ceriola sanctuary are busy at midday, so if you go in summer, arrive early on a Tuesday or Wednesday and stay overnight rather than day-tripping. Winter is quiet to the point of sparse: most restaurants reduce hours, some close entirely. But the island keeps its residents year-round. The bar in Peschiera Maraglio stays open and the church bells still ring. The fishing boats go out in the morning regardless of season.

The approach is by train, then ferry. From Milan, take a direct Trenord service to Brescia (roughly 50–60 minutes on the Milan–Venice mainline), then change to the Brescia–Iseo–Edolo line, operated by Trenord, which runs along the eastern shore of Lake Iseo and stops at both Iseo (for ferries from Iseo town) and Sulzano (for the fastest, most frequent crossing to Peschiera Maraglio). From Sulzano, the Navigazione Lago d'Iseo ferry takes under ten minutes.

One important note for pass holders: the Italia in Tour rail pass does not cover Lombardy. Trenord is explicitly excluded from that pass, and the entire Brescia–Iseo–Edolo line runs on Trenord. The approach to Monte Isola requires point-to-point Lombard tickets throughout: Milan to Brescia, Brescia to Sulzano, all paid separately. There is no pass shortcut here. Budget accordingly and book standard Trenord fares at the machine or via the Trenord app.

From Bergamo, a change at Brescia is the most reliable route; there is no direct rail connection along the western shore.

Staying overnight on the island changes the trip entirely: the day-trippers from Brescia and Bergamo leave on the last ferry, and the island returns to its own rhythm. Options are small and family-run. La Foresta in Peschiera Maraglio combines accommodation with one of the better kitchens on the island and a private mooring dock; it has been operating for decades. Castello Oldofredi in Siviano offers a small number of rooms within a restored medieval fortress with garden access. Several family-run B&Bs and agriturismo properties operate across the hamlets; Agriturismo Forest B&B (confirm it still operates) is noted for views over the lake and the Torbiere del Sebino nature reserve on the mainland. The official tourism site at visitmonteisola.it keeps a current accommodation list. Reserve well ahead for weekends in June, September and October; midweek stays in May or early October are the least pressured.

The lake kitchen here is distinct from the restaurant food of Brescia or Milan. The central dish is the sardina di Monte Isola: in practice, dried and salted agone (a freshwater fish native to Lake Iseo), a Slow Food Presidium product that has been cured on the island for centuries. It is eaten on its own, in pasta, or with polenta. Fresh-caught perch, whitefish and tench appear on most menus; look for carpione (fish marinated in vinegar and herbs, a preservation technique with medieval roots). Ristorante La Foresta in Peschiera Maraglio is the long-standing reference point for lake fish, and its lakefront terrace is worth the wait. Ristorante Locanda al Lago, run by the Soardi family since 1948, specialises in the same tradition. The island produces some olive oil; the local wine pairing is Franciacorta, the sparkling wine made from vineyards on the lake's western shore.

Walk the full perimeter path: roughly 9 kilometres of marked trail ringing the shore through olive groves and fishing villages, along lakeside terraces, two to three hours at a comfortable pace with stops. Rent a bicycle in Peschiera Maraglio and cover the same ground faster, with detours into the upper hamlets. Start, though, at the Infopoint in Peschiera Maraglio, where the small Museo delle Tradizioni sets out the island's working life and a naét, the local flat-bottomed fishing boat, is embedded in the floor and visible from the storey below. The parish church of San Michele Arcangelo alongside is early seventeenth-century, richly stuccoed and frescoed, and the Oratorio di San Rocco holds wall paintings attributed to Girolamo Romanino, in which the saints stand against a lake landscape that looks unmistakably like this one; visits are by prior booking.

For the fit, the climb to the Santuario della Madonna della Ceriola at 600 metres is the definitive ascent. Its origins are attributed to a fifth-century chapel built by the bishop Vigilio of Brescia; the present building is sixteenth-century in its current form, with a twelfth-century wooden Madonna inside, carved from a turkey-oak trunk (cerro, from which the name probably comes) and unobstructed views of the whole lake from the terrace. The descent via Menzino and Sinchignano takes a different route down, passing below the Rocca Martinengo, the castle the Oldofredi of Iseo raised around a circular watchtower in the fourteenth century. Gentler is the Strada degli Ulivi between Peschiera Maraglio and Sensole, the shoreline stretch that Arturo Tosi and a generation of Brescian painters worked for years. At Carzano, the church of Santi Faustino e Giovita holds an eighteenth-century interior and a Last Supper by Ottavio Amigoni.

Visit one of the active net-making workshops in Peschiera Maraglio to see the craft still practised; the visitmonteisola.it site lists current operators. Eat what the island makes: lake sardines dried, salted and put up under oil, a Slow Food presidium, usually with polenta; and the salame di Monte Isola, cut by knife and smoked in the cellars called cà del salam, made by families between December and February. Some 15,000 olive trees work the terraces, pressed at the island mill. Time a visit to Ferragosto and you can watch the Voga Longa, a three-and-a-half kilometre standing-row race in naét between Peschiera Maraglio and Sensole. The neighbouring islet of San Paolo, privately owned and ringed by cypress, is not open, but the view across to it is part of the landscape.

• Language: Italian; some Brescia-area dialect spoken among older residents
• Currency: euro
• Plug: European type F/L
• Money: ATMs in Peschiera Maraglio; Cards accepted in restaurants and hotels, cash useful at smaller bars and the ferry ticket window
• Mobile: Mobile coverage is good on the lower shore paths
• Getting around: Variable in the upper hamlets and on the summit trail
• Nearest hospital: Iseo town (basic) and Brescia (full, roughly 30 minutes by train and taxi from Sulzano)