Day 5 – Isola Bella and Pescatori – Thursday July 1

Brilliant sleep last night – bed at 10pm and woke at 6am. The jet lag must be gone and I'm getting used to sleeping on the ground again – yee ha.

Today is market day in Feriolo, so we wandered along to the township for our cappucinos and pastries for breakfast before going for a quick wander around the stalls, which were still getting set up. It's a tiny town, so consequently had a tiny market, so we'll have a look at the one in Stressa tomorrow – hopefully that will be better. Highlights of the local market were the stall selling Garmont ski boots -it's about 30 degrees at the moment, so I don't think he'll be getting too many takers.

The sparrows are very friendly here and obviously used to being fed, thus the requirement to protect and be prepared to defend your chocolate croissant from the numerous birds that come and perch on the next chair at the table waiting for the moment that your gaze in distracted.

Highlights of campground life so far have been the short fat man walking round this morning with his singlet tucked into his speedos – a sight for all the ladies. He was obviously pretty impressed with his form, because it seemed wherever we turned for about two hours this morning, there he was stomping from place to place. We also had “The Landrover Experience” here last night, with their fully kitted out Land Rover, complete with a tent on the roof of the Defender. I'm not sure where they've been, or where they're going, but the scariest thing in this campground is the mosquitoes or the man in his speedos with his singlet tucked into them, neither of which a roof top tent will protect you from.

Today's excursion is to Isola Bella and Isola Pescatori – two of the islands on Lake Maggiore. While we were in town buying our ticket for the boat to take us to the islands, this little Fat American man ahead of us in the queue was querying the woman in the ticket office about whether the boat had life preservers. Now, he of anybody would have been able to float (actually, he'd bob like a cork), the day is clear and the lake so flat that even Anne could take a boat trip without needing her wrist bands – anyway, the boat had life preservers, so our cautious friend was able to join us on the 5 minute trip to the island.

First stop for us was Isola Pescatori, which is more of a village island. It's very small and has lots of little shops and restaurants. It's a bit of a tourist trap, but the views of the villages on the edge of the lake are quite captivating, so it's definitely worth a visit and one of the restaurants has such a nice outlook that we'll come back tomorrow for lunch.

The other major island on the lake and the one that makes it to all the travel literature is Isola Bella – the island belonging to the Borromee family. The island can be divided into two halves – the house and the gardens. Being good capitalists, you have to pay to visit either and you can't visit one without visiting the other and best of all, it's a cash only business - $E12 per person. The house is like many other stately houses that we've been through over the years, with various rooms all pronouncing how important they are and what famous people have visited there. Napoleon and Joesphine for 3 days on one visit and then Josephine by herself for one day when she was Emporess.

The gardens on the other hand are very impressive and well worth the hour or so it takes to get around. It's built on several layers and has beautifully manicured hedges and lawns and some amazing statues and figurines. Taking up half of the island, with beautiful views over to the villages on the side of the lake, it really is a beautiful and tranquil place – apart from the very noisey, but impressive white peacock that was strutting round all the time we were there.

By the time we had finished the house and garden tour, it was getting on towards 1pm and the temperature was getting up into the 30's, so we caught the ferry back to the mainland and had lunch in the square in Stressa – Carpaccio and spaghetti Marinara for me and Bruschetta and spaghetto with prawns and zuchinni for Anne. After that, it was back to the campground for a wonderfully refreshing swim in the lake.

Dinner for the last two nights has been antipasti by the lakeside. There is a local supermarket, where we can by thin sliced Brescaola and Proscuito, cheese, bread and olives and we've sussed out the camp market and are now able to buy white wine out of the fridge, so we can make ourselves a nice little meal, grab our two chairs, table, wines glasses, a plate and a cheese knife and head down to the edge of the lake and enjoy a very pleasant evening at the end of a hot day.