Lake Orta is the quiet sister of Lake Maggiore, smaller, calmer and more mysterious, and on a wooded hill above its prettiest town stands a holy mountain dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. The Sacro Monte di Orta is a path through a park of beech and chestnut trees, linking twenty chapels built from the end of the sixteenth century onward, each containing life-size terracotta statues and frescoes depicting scenes from the life of the saint. It is one of the nine holy mountains of Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO in 2003, created during the Counter-Reformation as places of pilgrimage and devotion.
The chapels are a blend of architecture, sculpture and painting, with hundreds of figures arranged in dramatic scenes, and walking from one to the next, with glimpses of the lake through the trees, is a peaceful, gently theatrical experience. Below, Orta San Giulio is a jewel of a town, with a cobbled square by the water, old palaces with frescoed façades and the island of San Giulio just offshore, crowned by a Romanesque basilica and a Benedictine convent.
The riding around Lake Orta is beautiful and varied. The lakeside roads are narrow and twisting, with villages, views and limited traffic outside summer weekends. Climbing above the lake, the road to the Mottarone, between Lake Orta and Lake Maggiore, is a superb ride with tight curves and views over both lakes and the Alps, though part of the summit road is a private toll road. Surfaces are generally good, but watch for cyclists and tourists in the villages.
Orta San Giulio is a small, mostly pedestrian town, and vehicles must park above it. For fuel and full services, head for Omegna, about nine kilometres away at the northern end of the lake, an industrial town known for its kitchenware manufacturers and as the birthplace of the children's writer Gianni Rodari. Local food includes risotto, polenta with cheeses and game, lake fish and the cured meats of the Ossola valleys.
Come in spring, when the gardens bloom and the beech woods turn green, or in autumn, when the chestnuts ripen and the colours glow. Summer weekends can be busy. Walk up to the Sacro Monte in the early morning, before the crowds, and look down through the trees at the island floating on the still water.