Lake Bolsena - Holidays in the Heart of Italy

Bolsena Everything You Need to Know
Fleur Kinson
April , 2004 Norzia Press ISBN 0-9547594-0-0
www.bolsenaguidebook.com

Fleur Kinson, doyenne of italian travel writers, has written a superb guide book to Bolsena and the surrounding area. Strongly recommended to visitors. Read an excerpt from the opening page and click on the picture below it for more information:

"Tourists lured by their thousands into nearby Tuscany and Umbria, overlooked this precious corner of Lazio altogether; by the time they arrived in any significant number, so had ultra-modern ideas of sustainable tourism and sensitive development. Thus the loveliness of the giant crater part-filled by Lake Bolsena is assured - for now and for the foreseeable future. After many millennia in the making , the place has been deftly brought to perfection.

Pristine and uncrowded, this huge green-side bowl with its glittering blue floor forms a private, almost secret world. What lies beyond the crater is not only invisible from the inside, but holds less and less fascination to visitors mesmerized by the tranquility here. It is an arena in which newcomers quickly feel at home, a place which compels the same holidaymakers to return year after year."

Also check out Fleur's other sites.
www.where-to-go-in-italy.com
www.where-to-buy-in-italy.com

From The Sunday Times
June 17, 2007
Italy's great unknown town
With no signs and little help, things aren’t easy for tourists in Bolsena - so this unsung town is perfectly unscathed. Click on this picture to read an article by Robert Ryan.

Meet Anne Robichaud. Traveller and essayist and self-proclaimed italio-phile. She came to Italy over 30 years ago as a student and has never gone back. Now a lecturer and tour operator she devotes a page of her travelogues to Bolsena. Click on the picture to read about her annual pilgramage to the Lake.

Beware. Food gets a strong mention, those on diets please turn over now.

Italy's other lake district
Brits flock to Garda and Maggiore, but Stephen Pritchard falls for the understated pleasures of Bolsena

* Stephen Pritchard
* Printed in the The Observer, Sunday 12 August 2007

"This small medieval town, clustered on the shore of the great lake to which it gives it name, has taken the shrub to its heart, planting it everywhere: in every street, on every roundabout, in every public space.

When we arrived in Bolsena we found ourselves in the middle of its annual hydrangea festival. As you might imagine, this is hardly a bacchanalian orgy to rival the days of ancient Rome, but it has a quiet charm if horticulture is your thing. Varieties of the shrub line the streets in profusion. Music plays. People stroll. It's delightfully civilised.

Impressive fortifications perched above the main town look out over Italy's largest volcanic lake. It's about 12km long and 14km wide, so it feels rather like being by the sea, particularly when the wind gets up and angry rain clouds roll across its surface.

Fishermen gather their boats in the little harbour at Bolsena, where they land their catch of pike, perch and eel ... any of which could end up on your plate at dinner. There is no heavy industry in this area, which means the waters are mercifully clear of pollution. Unlike its more famous mountain cousins, Garda and Maggiore, Lake Bolsena is ringed with gently sloping hills that limit the amount of spill-off from the land - and keep its waters unusually clear."