CollDeTroia

I am hoping to travel from Lake Maggiora to Switzerland the last week of August 2015 for about 10 days. I am not sure where to stay on Lake Maggiora nor where to stay in Switzerland? Should we drive or take the train? Flying into Milan then to the Maggiora. I would like to stay at a very nice hotel with pool and walking distance to town for dinner, shopping, site seeing, ferry, etc. in Italy. Same for Switzerland. We like to have the "local" experience. Any and all suggestions welcomed!

kja

I trust you realize that part of Lake Maggiore IS in Switzerland --the part around Locarno / Ascona.

For travel in Switzerland, I would strongly recommend use of the excellent trains. Here's the main web site:
http://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html

For this part of Switzerland, the guidebooks that I found most helpful were the Rough Guide and the Michelin Green Guide. If you don't already have them, consider going to your local library. They will provide invaluable information and answers to questions you don't even know to ask.

Hope that helps!

flanneruk

There's a decent ferry system between towns in both countries on both sides of the lake, though there's a limit to how much travelling you can do in a day on it. There's also a number of sort of OK railway connections between both countries on each side, though they're generally better for sightseeing than for efficient movement around the place.

The roads around the lake can be a nightmare during the summer, all-day parking near (ie within a mile or so of) ferry terminals is virtually impossible in most towns and even outside the summer peak driving anywhere can often take far, far longer than you might imagine. Without a car, though, the practicalities of train and ferry timetables severely limit how much of the area along and around the lake you can actually limit.

Those limits won't prevent you having a wide range of places to go to without needing a car from a base in, say, Stresa or Laveno. But if there's something you particularly want to see or do, it's essential to check on the practicalities of doing so from your base first.

Doing without a car IS possible, and far less stressful than driving, though it's much easier (if hardly cheap) to get to the towns on the east shore by cab from Malpensa airport than to mess about with the often medieval railway timetables.

Trains from the Milan area to the west shore (from Malpensa, get the frequent trains to Busto Arsizio and change: about an hour MXP-Arona and about 90 mins MXP-Stresa) are dramatically less dilatory than those to the east shore - which are mostly slower than the world's first passenger service was 185 years ago.

Getting from, say, Lausanne or Konstanz to Italian airports can be a nuisance, though most railway connections from virtually anywhere in Switzerland straight into Zurich or Geneva airports are miraculously painless. It's probably easiest to book an open jaw flight from your home to Milan Malpensa, returning from Zurich or Geneva.

neckervd

Direct slow trains (but scenic itinerary) from MXP to the Eastern shore of Lake Maggiore (Laveno - Luino - Maccagno - Ranzo - Gerra - San Nazzaro - Magadino - Cadenazzo (change for Locarno)) every 2 hrs.
Trains to Gallarate every 2 hrs, buses to Gallarate at irregular intervals, trains from Gallarate to the Western shore of Lake Maggiore (Arona - Meina - Lesa - Belgirate - Stresa - Baveno - Verbania) about every hr.
Airport buses to Arona - Stresa - Domodossola at irregular intervals.
Buses from Verbania railway station to Pallanza - Intra (change) - Cannero - Cannobio - Brissago (change) - Ascona - Locarno about every 1-2 hrs.
Non stop buses from MXP to Lugano with immediate train connection to Giubiasco/Bellinzona - Locarno.

Most popular places along Lake Maggiore:
Locarno, Ascona, Stresa, Pallanza, Cannobio, Baveno, Intra, Brissago, Laveno.

If you want to go from Arona, Meina, Lesa, Stresa, Baveno, Verbania, Locarno to a glacier area, take a train to Domodossola and board there either
a Macugnaga bound bus (Gondolas from Macugnaga up to the Glacier area of Monte Rosa)
or
a train to Brig (change) - Fiesch and the gondola to Eggishorn, with views over the whole Aletsch Glacier up to Jungfrau.

annhig

we stayed for 2 weeks in Stresa a few years ago [actually, thinking about it, 27 years ago] and never ran out of things to do.

alternatively, a week on the italian side, and then another on the swiss side would make a nice combination.

nytraveler

You're not clear if you want just to visit the kake area or you want to head into Switz to see other areas in the heart of the Alps.

We stayed at Stresa as the beginning of a road trip that ended in Paris - in 3 weeks. For us 4 nights (3 days in the Stresa area was enough - and a good chance to relax at the beginning of a vacation. We then headed north to Lucerne (6 nights in the area seeing lakes, alps and charming towns, then headed into Strasbourg and finally to Paris - where we dropped the car.

So - it really depends on what you want to do/see. There is a lot to do right around the lake (and we found having a car helpful in getting to many places - but we were there at end of May).