Lake Orta holiday apartment: Lortallo

We have just returned from an amazing week at Lake Orta. The apartments are well designed and full equipped, the owner has taken a lot of time ensuring that every requirement is catered for - right down to providing books, games, DVDs etc for both children and adults alike. The pool and its surrounding area and gardens were particularly delightful, especially as we had such beautiful weather for the whole week we spent at the property. This area of Italy is really beautiful and there are many places to visit and lots of good, reasonably priced restaurants to choose to eat out in. It is a much slower, more relaxed, very Italian pace here compared to the mass tourism of the bigger lakes such as Como and Garda. We will definitely return as we did not have long enough to do all the things we wanted in the week. The owner provided a lot of good information on various places to visit and things to do and we managed a few things but would like to come back and do a few others. One of the best activities are the walks available from the property - none of them are particularly difficult and all are suitable for children, I think the longest was around 3 hours return, although we would recommend good trainers or walking shoes for summer and possibly hiking boots for winter, as a lot of it was in wooded areas with trails which could be slippery in wet weather. The owner was very helpful and came and introduced himself personally to us on the day we arrived. He took a lot of time helping us out with finding a pharmacy to get medication for our son who developed an ear infection whilst we were at the villa and for that we are most grateful. Nothing seems to be too much trouble for him or the Italian local people who work for him.