Many have asked for it and here it is : our ranking of the best viewpoints from which to enjoy a fabulous view of the lake.
This post is definitely an invitation to look around. Indeed more: an appeal to get lost in the magic of the landscape, to fully savour the wonders of the landscape. In short, to feast your eyes on beauty. And around us, in the area between the two lakes, there are many panoramic points "just a click away", places from which to take an impressive photograph or admire a breathtaking vista. So here is our shortlist, created for all those who want to ... look at the world from above.
It dominates the hills around La Darbia with its characteristic rounded profile and always offers suggestive glimpses of a wonderful horizon. I am talking, of course, of our Mount Mottarone, from whose summit you can enjoy an incredible spectacle: the profile of Lake Orta, the crown of the Alps on which Monviso and Monte Rosa stand, the majesty of Lake Maggiore which sidles up to Switzerland. Islands and coasts, inlets and gulfs, woods and slopes to be embraced with the gaze and kept in our emotional memory.
A grandiose scene can also be contemplated from the Croce di Egro, on the western shore of the lake. Leave the car in the small car park in the town and proceed on foot for a quarter of an hour along a path in the woods that leads to the famous panoramic cross: on a hill overlooking the area, decidedly overlooking the lake, a wooden cross as a sign of popular devotion. Taking some selfies is inevitable, while the gaze goes from Omegna to the Gozzano beach. And if, as sometimes happens, the day also offers a cheerful rainbow, you really get the impression of participating in the magnificence of nature.
There is someone who gets up in the middle of the night, well before sunrise, to reach the Belvedere of Quarna and admire the grandiose spectacle of the dawn. A real balcony overlooks the Cusio basin, a terrace suspended in the clouds from which to appreciate the unmistakable silhouette of Lake Orta that juts out to the south, with the island of San Giulio in the middle. The gaze embraces an evocative landscape, dominated by a light that fills the eyes and nurtures the heart: sunrise, seen from here, reminds us of the miracle of a new day beginning.
I cannot close the discussion on the views without mentioning another amazing place, a true postcard scene that we can admire from the top of Monte Barro, just above the town of Agrano.
We enter a path between beech and chestnut trees, while the forest welcomes us with dappled light that filters through the foliage and the scent of wild moss. And as we walk to reach the Alpine cross located on the top of the hill, it seems that the panorama is there waiting for us: it calls us, it attracts us, it inevitably seduces us to the point of giving us a surprising perspective.
To restore the spirit, to contemplate the majesty of creation or savour a feeling of freedom ... whatever the engine that drives us, to all of us landscape hunters, I hope that the wish formulated by the American writer Edward Abbey will be realized:
"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome,
dangerous, leading to the most amazing view”.
