Belgirate

Belgirate sits on the west shore of Lake Maggiore, eleven kilometers south of Verbania and ten north of Arona. The village climbs the lower slopes of the Motta Rossa hill, where the medieval core takes its name from the curve, the bel girare, that the shore makes here. The Chiesa Vecchia di Santa Maria sits above the town on a terrace looking over the lake.

The Romanesque bell tower dates to the eleventh century, the body of the church to the twelfth; the small churchyard gives the panorama that has kept the village on Grand Tour itineraries for two hundred years. The Società delle Regate, founded in Belgirate in 1858, is recognised as the first yacht club in Italy and still races each year. The nineteenth-century villas along the shore hosted Alessandro Manzoni, Antonio Rosmini and the poet Guido Gozzano; Villa Carlotta, now a hotel, was where several Risorgimento figures met. The commune has no institutional signals firing, which suits a place that has stayed small on purpose.