We had a wonderful Inntravel holiday at Lake Iseo for the second year running. The hotels are wondeful and the lake view rooms are well worth having. We travelled in June and the temperatures were in the low 30s. This did make walking more difficult, but all the hotels had cooling pools. The locals recommended September / October for a more temperate holiday. Highlights for us were the Relais I Due Roccoli, the walk to Sulzano, and Monte Isola. Relais I Due Roccoli is wonderful and the restaurant and the delightful staff help make it our favourite hotel ( and we have been to many). The walk to Sulzano through the woods was quiet, shady, and with lovely birdsong. Monte Isola remains a delight and the regular ferry is brilliant: try Hostario Milago for a lakeside meal. Finally, you really cannot beat the local Corte Franca wines, especially Franciacorta, and walking through the vineyards is a great way to locate them. All in all, a really good package. Mike and Jayne.

The views of the lake from the first two hotels and having a balcony at them added to our enjoyment of the trip. Whilst at the Due Roccoli we did the recommended walk in the morning and came back for a very enjoyable lunch at the hotel. Monte Isola was very interesting to explore on the recommended walk and we also enjoyed dinner at the Osteria Milago one evening. Note that the Monastry of San Pietro near the Torbiere reserve is closed on Mondays.

Overall this was a very pleasant trip with good food, accommodation and great views. Although the area round the southern end of the Lake is quite built up, the route is still scenic and dramatic in places.

One of the big highlights for us was the food and the meals provided.  Each hotel had its own way of doing things and overall, the food was excellent.  Clearly, the location is stunning and whilst we had mixed weather that did not detract from the beauty of the lake and the mountains. The only meal we found a little disappointing is the one we had at Hotel Rivalago, on our first night.  We were tired from the walk so decided to take the easy option and eat at the hotel.  However, it is our understanding that it is an outside provider that does the evening meal, and it was a little disappointing.  The following night we took the boat across the lake to the Island where there were several wonderful restaurants and had a lovely meal there.  We would certainly recommend to your customers that they consider doing this.

Yet again Inntravel has produced a wonderful walking holiday. The hotels were exceptional and all had lovely settings. There were one or two short challenging steep paths for which we were grateful for our walking poles.

This was the first time we have tried rail travel rather than flying and we were impressed by the complex set of tickets produced by Inntravel. All went well until we were informed of a rail strike but Inntravel quickly sorted out a flight back from Zurich. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

Choosing rooms with a lake view (and in one case paying a surcharge) made all the difference. The view over the lake from all three hotels was a joy.

We have completed several Inntravel multi-centre walking holidays and this rates as one of the best for walking routes, accommodation and provided meals. All the meals provided were high quality. The breakfast in the last hotel was exceptional. Each walking route had splendid views across the lake, hills and mountains. Interesting woodland flowers, olive groves and vineyards along with spectacular views on most routes. Being able to see ahead to the next location and back to former locations from the various paths made this a particularly interesting route overall. Adding an extra day at the last location allowed us time to explore to the northern end of the lake and make use of the local train and boat service to explore more of the lakeside villages. Going in April meant we avoided the inevitable summer crowds.

We really enjoyed Verona where we had a 3 night add on. The excellent Hotel Romeo e Guiletta was perfectly situated and in easy walking of all the sites as well as the bus and railway station. Our transfer to and from Lake Iseo by train and taxi worked well and were on time. Lake Iseo is beautiful and we couldn't ask for better views whilst walking or from the 3 hotels we stayed in. We enjoyed the walks which were both varied and interesting. We highly recommend this holiday.

Inntravel note: This customer enjoyed our self-guided walking holiday Lake Iseo, the Jewel of Lombardy, along with our city add-on in Verona.

The highlights for me were: the beautiful location of all three hotels and the fact that they all had a swimming pool where I was able to have a swim both before breakfast and after a beautiful walk each day. 

The ferry crossing from Sulzano to Monte Isola to climb to the Shrine of Madonna della Ceriola in Cure was stunning. 

We returned to the island one evening to eat dinner at one of the trattorias - such a beautiful setting (especially at sunset)!

The three hotels on Lake Iseo were lovely. We felt v indulged. The breakfasts were magnificent in all three hotels and the dinners in Due Roccoli were delicious. We also enjoyed going out for dinner in the final hotel and also in Verona. This gave us more of a flavour of the locality and culture. Altogether the mix was good. 

All the hotels were in great spots with great views the rooms were lovely and the food of a very high standard. The staff in each hotel were really charming and good fun which always enhances the experience. The only low was the picnic that the hotel Due Roccoli provided. It was laughably awful. Dry white bread with cheese and ham,unripe fruit and a lot of pre packed biscuits.

It was a great break. The accomodation was wonderful. Highly recommended.

One of the best Inntravels we've done (out of 20+...), with varied, interesting walks and exceptionally comfortable hotels and food. Glad we booked the lake view rooms as the views were lovely. Walking poles are needed as there are a few short but steep sections that can be slippy (especially if it's at all wet). Transport all like clockwork: transfers, ferry, trains all on time. 

Get rooms with lakeside views and the highlight walk was around Monte Isola.

if booking Verona look at possibility of seeing a concert in the Arena

A wonderful holiday on the quiet and tranquil countryside around Lake Iseo.  Great hotels with wonderful views and food.  We particularly enjoyed the nature reserve with its brooding atmosphere and wooden walkways and the great walk round Mount Isola with spectacular views at the top. I would recommend the holiday unreservedly to anyone looking for peace and beauty with great food!

The hotels were excellent, particularly Due Roccoli and Relais Mirabel, with v helpful, friendly staff, wonderful situations, views and excellent food. Couldn't be improved and were the real highlight of the holiday. We didn't enjoy the dining experience at Rivalgo and so ate out. We thoroughly enjoyed exploring Monte Isola as well as eating out there, Hostaria Milago being excellent. The walks were OK, not demanding and with good views at times, but often obscured by trees and not in the same class as the excellent walks, views and scenery that we experienced in Slovenia last year. We enjoyed our extra days at Due Roccoli in particular as it is such a great hotel with such excellent views. We would really recommend the Verona add on - it is delightful.

A very pleasant tour through some lovely countryside and lakeside villages with some spectacular scenery. Monte Isola, in particular is a beautiful spot and a nice place to have dinner. Transfers were very efficiently managed and accomodations were very comfortable. I would reccommend perhaps an extra day in Sulzano to take a ferry trip to some of the other lake settlements or to visit the nearby prehistoric cave paintings.

This was a walking holiday in a delightful part of Italy with wonderful hotels, however, there is not a lot of walking involved! If you are going by train to Iseo, you will definitely need to book at taxi via the hotel (Relais Mirabella) as there are no taxis at the station. This should be done a couple of days, at least, in advance.

HIGHLIGHTS: Apennines walk was super. Il Fondaccio was our favourite hotel there. So lovely to have such a spacious comfortable room. Linda is a lovely host and it was a charming village. Everywhere we went we received the warmest welcome and the generosity of the local people was exceptional. On the Lake Iseo walk, our favourite hotel was Il Due Roccoli. Again the warm welcomes, beautiful rooms with views and stunning food in the restaurants made the whole experience so memorable. We highly commend Inntravel for the choices of hotels in every case. 

INNTRAVEL NOTE: These customers combined our walks The Secret Apennines and Secret Lake Iseo with our City add-ons in Bologna and Verona

We (over 60s) thoroughly enjoyed all the walks. The Nature Reserve outside Clusane was very good; terrapins were an unexpected delight. We did the low-level walk from I Due Roccoli to Sulzano. We enjoyed it, although it was hard work - especially on the mule track descent from San Fermo. On our last day we didn't have the energy to climb to the top of Monte Isola, but it was nice to walk around the southern coastline of the island. We had an excellent Sunday lunch at the Trattoria del Sole just outside Sensole. A busy restaurant, very popular with families from the mainland, with excellent service.

The Mirabella stay is an exceptional experience and a great start to any holiday.Having reasonable access to Clusane added to the experience as the village provides a pretty escape, should you want one. With places to eat, stroll and relax.

Du Rocolli is also an exceptional experience. Its remoteness means you are confined unless you are prepared to take another precarious walk.Unfortunately Taxi's are in short supply across the whole lake, so not really an option.

Rivalago- Great location. The hotels facilities were once again good. Our downside- and you should note this carefully- was a wedding on our last day/night rendered the hotels amenities out of bounds and a good nights sleep impossible. The rooms are located above the weddiing reception party and vibrate to the sound of the music until 1am. Clearly weddings are a profitable part of the hotels business, but not at the expense of other paying guests- or your contract with them. The issuse was raised at the time to no avail. What was telling was this hotel was the only hotel not to ask ": how was your stay?" on departure.

We enjoyed all of the walks, despite temperatures of 30+on some days. Our favourite was the high walk to Hotel Rivalgo, made easier because of the dry weather. All of the hotels had great views of the lake but our favourite was definitely I Due Roccoli. The food was lovely and friendliness and care of all the staff was first class.

Stunning scenery, interesting walks and the Relais I Due Riccoli was perfect - position, grounds, views, friendly and helpful staff, room, food and the enormous packed lunch - what more could you ask for.

This was a lovely holiday in an area that is not crammed with tourists. Beautiful views and some amazing accommodation. Monte Isola is very special. We had good weather, suitable both for walking and swimming in the hotel pools. The walks included easy paths but also some quite challenging parts; hiking poles are a must. In terms of restaurants, highlights included Due Roccoli, Borgo San Giulio and Cacciatore in Sulzano. The food quality was uneven at Mirabella, though this apparently is linked to post-pandemic staffing issues. We went to Verona afterwards, a very easy trip and perfect for a couple of nights. 

We followed the notes and found the walking varied, fairly challenging, and enjoyable. Hotels were all very good, even better than expected. The final stay at Hotel Rivalago and the day walking up, and the steep route down, Monte Isole worked very well for us. 

Lake Iseo and it's mountain backdrop is stunning. The hotels were very good, the food was great and the service and staff excellent. We enjoyed the holiday very much but it isn't an attractive walking route. Buy a proper map of the area before you go. The route is classed as Moderate it is more challenging than that suggests.

Overall a good holiday, thanks for your excellent organisation.

The whole holiday was excellent and enjoyable and embraced the Italian culture

We were totally blown away!!!!  We already had experience with InnTravel (Slovenia) and that was excellent.  We didn't know this corner of the Italian lakes at all so had absolutely no expectations.  The manner in which you go about your researching of the 'quiet, secret corners' of your itineraries is mind-blowing.  Pin-point accuracy of your notes (our fault if we got a bit lost high up on a mountain .... must've been the thin air!!!!);  the specific routes (trying to avoid busy roads as best as possible); restaurant suggestions; transfers; us three just loved each and every day and didn't want our week to end.  This delayed week was so worth waiting for .... thank you InnTravel ..... you will definitely be hearing from us again.  Your Portugal walks are calling!

To reiterate the point of 'secret Lake Iseo' ..... we went to Lake Como for a few days the following week and it is without a doubt a very popular tourist destination - the train from Milan  was heaving and it was the first time we heard foreign accents, other than Italian from the week before;  there are of course great hikes in this area but we were so happy to know that we spent a week in Lake Iseo.  (We took a ferry to Bellagio and as we expected, it was full of day-trippers, including ourselves .... one wonders what it's like in the middle of summer).

Thank you again ..... it was all wonderful!

Perhaps our expectations were too high with regards to the walks, there was not really enough to do.

Very well organised, with great service from hotel staff and the taxi transfers.  Wonderful food and delightful hotels

September 2022
Despite rather mixed weather, we had a splendid holiday on lake Iseo. The lake, surrounded by high mountains is both beautiful and spectacular viewed from the lakeside, the walks and the hotels. Because the weather forecast was bad for day 2, we chose to do the high walk to the Due Roccoli on day 1. We enjoyed it despite the usual frustration that the what should have been wonderful views over the lake were obscured by trees and that some of the ascents and decent were very rough under foot. On a wet day 2 we took the train to Iseo and then taxi to the Due Roccoli. Day 3 we went back to Monte Isola and had a delightful quiet walk with lovely views of the lake in all directions as we went round. Day 4 a very nice walk to Clusane, particularly the high level part and day 5 an unexpectedly nice country walk around the vineyards looking up at the mountains we had crossed.
All three hotels were very good indeed, all with spectacular views, from our rooms at the Rivalago and Mirabella and from the bar and breakfast room at the Due Roccoli, and excellent breakfasts. We had a very good dinner in the terrace restaurant at the Rivalago and two excellent ones at the Due Roccoli. At the Mirabella We tried all three dining options: The Trattoria Mulliner in the town was…… the hotel restaurant was very small and had a limited menu, but was very good. The Da Nadia, the on site fine dining restaurant was truly excellent. Both the latter are only open some evenings. 
Finally, perhaps because we were at the end of the season, getting around was very difficult. Taxis were only obtainable at all through the hotels and often not available at all and both ferry and bus services very limited. In particular, the ferries only run from Clusane on a Saturday, so the suggestion of a boat trip up the lake on day 5 is not viable.

Highlights of this holiday include the amazing a different views of Lake Iseo from each hotel room. Definitely worth paying extra for a lake view in each hotel. The al fresco dinner at the Hotel Rivalago was a truly magical experience- and the Ravioli was delicious washed down with the delicious local Franciacorta Chardonnay. The high level walk to Iseo had some amazing views over the lake and in dry conditions was not too demanding or tricky. The walk to the top of island was a lovely warm up with again fabulous views over the lake. We took a train from Iseo to Capo di Ponte to visit the ancient rock pictlures which was a lovely outing.

We loved the whole holiday, the excellent hotels, the wonderful food and the stunning views.  The holiday exceeded our expectations in every way.  The walking instructions were spot on.  The service received from Inntravel was brilliant given all the complications with Covid, thank you.

A couple of recommendations: at Hotel Rivalago, the ferries to Monte Isola are every 15mins so it's really easy to hop over there for dinner, which we did and had a great, good value, amazingly friendly meal at Hostario Milago, a few steps from the ferry stop in Peschiera Maraglio.  We also had a fabulous lunch on the island, in the same village, at Decio, this is highly recommende, superb food and friendly service.  

Great holiday thank you yet again Inntravel. Lovely hotels, walks and the routes and difficultly level suited us perfectly. I would recommend the area and was delighted that it wasn't overcrowded and also was very 'Italian' (food, hospitality and spoken word). Thoroughly recommended. 

The Italian lakes are busy and although Iseo is smaller, it is a secret that has got out. Beautiful scenery, and some attractive towns and villages to explore. Walking was not as expected, being almost entirely on hard surfaces, and an itinerant day that did for my old knees - though with some glorious views. For Iseo do take walking poles - I dont usually walk with poles but very glad I bought some to go on this holiday. Public transport is quite limited now in September 2022 so not all the options suggested in the walking notes were possible. If you are not a fish eater you may wish to state your preference in advance since menus are almost all 90% lake fish or seafood. We walked 8 miles one day to find salad! Dinner at I Due Roccoli by candlelight is a real treat with old-fashioned service - delightful.

This was a beautiful holiday with incredible views and stunning hotels. We particularly loved the Hotel due Roccoli though I recommend a lake view upgrade as the views are sensational. We ate at the Trattoria cacciatore on the first night which was fun and informal with lovely pasta and again wonderful views. The walking was tough at times but mostly because it was very hot and humid during our stay. We couldn't face another long walk on our last day so we walked into Sarnico which was next to the road some of the way but then along the lake shore. We really liked this town with its market and good places to eat. The only small negative was being taken down to a trattoria each evening from the last hotel. If not eating in the hotel we would have preferred to be B and B and choose where to eat. After so much rich food we just fancied a simple pizza. The trattoria was pretty good however.