I am certain that this question has been posed many times before but I can't find a recent posting. We enjoy staying in a nice hotel with old world charm but with modern facilities. Needless to say we'd also appreciate a hotel with a view of the lakes. We welcome suggestions from those of you who have been there . Planning a trip is so much easier with advise from other Fodorites. Thank you in advance.

skye5,

We stayed on tiny Isola dei Pescatore just off Stresa, at the Hotel Verbano. Our room was large and comfortable, very "old world", huge bathroom, and our outer door opened on to a HUGE terrace on the water (shared with 2 other rooms) with views of the lake and mountains. Excellent hotel restaurant. Dead quiet at night since there are no cars.

You can take the public boats that run between all the Borromean Islands, or if outside their operating hours, have the hotel arrange a private boat transfer for you.

We just loved this hotel, although note that our trip was in 2000.

This hotel has the best views....and the restaurant has a terrace overlooking the lake also....very clean and very reasonable price...

http://www.trerosehotel.com/hoteltre...lese/home.html

Forgot to say.....it's Lake Como between Como and Bellagio

http://www.preferredhotels.com/prefe....aspx?id=73588

We loved this property. The hotel & restaurant have beautiful views over the lake and there is a boat stop quite nearby. Also, as I have mentioned on this site often, we had one of our best restaurant experiences ever at "Al Veluu" overlooking the lake about a 10 minute drive away.

We spent 3 days in Stressa the last week of July this year. We stayed at the Hotel Saini Meuble because of good reviews on Trip Advisor. The room was fine but basically you just look out onto another window across the narrow street about 1 1/2 blocks for the water. There was no air conditioning (which we knew going in) and it was kind of hot and sticky but the bigger problem was the noise from the street having to keep windows open. Also the guy who runs it is kind of pushy in my opinion-the restaurant he recommended the first night was lousy-one of the tourist places on the square (we were too embarrassed to leave since he had made a big to do about booking it for us!). I think he was getting a kick back from the owners....

Anyway suffice it to say I wouldn't stay there again. I think next time if I wanted something still kind of "budget" I would book the Hotel Italie E Suisse and get a room with a view of the lake itself since that is what you are really there for. If you want upscale then the Hotel Regina Palace is really elegant. I wouldn't stay further from the center than that if you don't plan to drive. We basically drove into town and parked the car and then walked everywhere-it was free to park for 3 days!

The restaurant we did love was called the Vicoletto. Here is a Facebook site for them:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stresa...sa/70090437695

Great food-best meal we had in our short stay in Italy! And very reasonable-as I recall under 90 euros for both of us with starter shared dessert and espresso.

Feel free to email me directly with any Stressa questions-my email is on my profile. I am not an expert but we spent 3 days there hanging out exploring.

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with me. Very good information. Jpie I may get back to you as my planning progresses. I have also been disappointed by Trip Advsior recommendations in the past so I appreciated your story.