10 Days · Northern Italy · 6 Guests
Live Real
Chapter One
Three bases, three landscapes. The lakes, the vineyards, and the high Alps of Northern Italy, at an unhurried pace.
What's Included
from Malpensa
unique properties
local & traditional only
and excursions
including the Bernina Express
on the final night
International flights are not included. Guests arrive at Malpensa on Day 1 and fly home on the morning of Day 11.
Day
Welcome to Italy
From the moment you land, we take care of everything. We pick you up from the airport and after a short drive you arrive at your home for the next three nights, a unique property on Lake Maggiore. A relaxing afternoon, then the welcome dinner at a traditional local restaurant.
Day
The Borromean Islands
Today you venture to the Borromean Islands, three small islands sitting in the middle of Lake Maggiore that feel like they belong in a different century.
The Borromeo family began shaping them in the 1500s, importing soil, rare plants, and stone to build baroque palaces and terraced gardens on what were once bare rocks. Today, white peacocks roam the grounds, orchids grow alongside centuries-old magnolias, and the whole place has the feeling of somewhere that shouldn't exist and yet does, right there in the middle of a lake.
You'll travel between the islands by private boat with Daniela, a local guide who has spent more than 30 years on them. She'll share the stories, the details, and the hidden corners most visitors never find.
Day
Lago d'Orta
A short drive west brings you to Lago d'Orta, a smaller, quieter lake in the foothills of the Alps, where dark forest runs down to the water's edge and centuries of history linger.
The village of Orta San Giulio dates back to Roman times. Its medieval streets lead down to a main piazza facing the lake, and out in the middle of the water sits the island of San Giulio, home to a Benedictine abbey and a 12th-century Romanesque basilica. Legend has it that in the 4th century a Christian missionary named Julius crossed to the island, drove out the serpents that lived there, and built his hundredth church on the rock. Benedictine nuns still live there today.
Daniela joins you again, crossing with you to the island and leading you through the quiet lanes of the village, where every doorway seems to have a story.
Day
Lake Como
Today you say goodbye to Lake Maggiore and drive east to Lake Como, where a private boat is waiting for you. From here, you simply sit back and let the lake do the work. You glide past grand villas and terraced gardens, past small towns that cling to the steep shoreline, with the mountains rising straight out of the water on every side.
Midway through the morning, the boat pulls up at a restaurant right on the water's edge, run by the same family for as long as anyone can remember. Before lunch, you're taken down into their cantina, a cellar dating back to the 1300s, where the cool stone walls have kept wine for more than seven centuries. Then it's back up into the light for a long, unhurried lunch facing the lake. It's the kind of place you'd never find on your own.
The boat carries you on to Varenna, one of the most beautiful villages on the lake. The afternoon is yours to wander the narrow lanes and stone staircases, stroll the lakeside walkway, or find a café by the water and watch the ferries come and go.
In the late afternoon, you make your way to Valtellina, your home for the next three nights. The property sits among the vineyards, just a short drive from the lake, and from the bedroom windows the view needs no filter at all.
Day
A Day with the Menegola Family
Four generations. Same slopes. Same vines. Walter Menegola makes wine in Valtellina the way it has always been made here, by hand, on terraces so steep no machine can reach them.
After a homemade breakfast, Walter takes you on a slow stroll through his vineyards, explaining a world that runs on its own rules. Here, you cannot simply buy a vineyard. It is passed down through the family, or entrusted to a fellow winemaker you know will care for it. Life follows the rhythm of nature, and age is measured not in years, but in harvests.
Then it's down into the cantina: the barrels, the production, and a tasting of his wines alongside local cheeses and cured meats.
In the afternoon, the kitchen is yours. Pizzoccheri is Valtellina on a plate: short ribbons of buckwheat pasta cooked with potatoes and savoy cabbage, then layered with melting Valtellina Casera cheese and butter browned with garlic and sage. Every family here makes it a little differently, and today you learn to make it by hand. As the light fades over the terraces, you sit down to eat what you've made, with Walter's wine poured alongside.
Day
Valmalenco
Just north of Sondrio, a narrow road climbs into Valmalenco, a deep green valley that runs all the way up to the glaciers of the Bernina range and the Swiss border. It is one of the Alps' best-kept secrets.
Life here has always been lived outdoors. People in Valmalenco grow up with the mountains on their doorstep, and they treat them as part of everyday life rather than somewhere to visit. They walk and climb in summer, ski and snowshoe in winter, and in every season they know the trails, the weather, and the wildlife the way others know their own streets.
Today you get a taste of that life, with a scenic hike along mountain paths, through larch forest and open high pastures, with the peaks of the Bernina range rising above you. The pace is gentle; the views are not. The trail ends at a mountain hut, where lunch is waiting with the whole valley spread out below you.
Day
The Bernina Express
Today the road to Bormio takes the long way round, and it's the most beautiful way there is. After breakfast, you drive north through Val Chiavenna and over the Maloja Pass into Switzerland, one of those roads where conversation fades and the views take over. By late morning you reach St. Moritz, where you board the Bernina Express. Your bags travel ahead by road, so you step aboard with nothing to carry.
Built over a century ago and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the line was a feat of engineering that still seems impossible today. It is one of the steepest railways in the world to climb without a cog wheel, gripping gradients of up to 7% on nothing but steel on steel. The train rises past the Morteratsch Glacier to the Bernina Pass at 2,253 metres, the highest railway crossing of the Alps, where the milky turquoise waters of Lago Bianco sit beneath snow-capped peaks. From there it drops in tight curves past Alp Grüm, through stone tunnels and across arched viaducts, before making its most famous move, a full spiral on the circular viaduct of Brusio, looping over itself to lose height. In just a couple of hours you descend from glaciers to palm trees, arriving in Tirano, back in Italy.
Day
The Stelvio National Park
Today belongs to the mountains. Alice, your local mountain guide, leads you into the Stelvio National Park, one of the largest national parks in the Alps, rising right above Bormio.
You walk through alpine meadows and past glaciers, keeping an eye out for ibex, chamois, and marmots, in the kind of silence you only find this high up. The pace is set by the group, never by the clock. Along the way, Alice shares the history of the park, its wildlife, and its plants, the kind of knowledge that turns a hike into something more than a walk.
The trail ends at a mountain hut, where a well-deserved lunch is waiting, with the peaks all around you.
Day
The Thermal Waters
Your last full day is all about slowing down. The morning is free to wander Bormio's medieval centre, with its stone towers, frescoed churches, and the Kuerc, the old covered loggia in the main square where the town once gathered to hold court.
The afternoon is spent at the Terme Bagni Vecchi. People have been bathing in these thermal springs for more than 2,000 years. The Romans built the first baths here when they found hot water bursting from the mountainside, and Leonardo da Vinci wrote about them in his notebooks. The pools are carved into the rock, with ancient grottos and caves, and an outdoor panoramic pool that looks straight down the valley. You soak in the warm water and watch the sun set over the peaks.
Day
Until next time
A morning transfer takes you to your hotel near Malpensa. The trip is over. The memories are yours.