If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR681.82), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Between Villa Padiglione and Villa Ottagonale – the whimsical duo of powder-puff-pink confections that face each across La Foleia hotel’s tranquil lake – lies a miniature world of possibilities. Bathe in heated natural rock pools, forge a path through water lilies and lotus flowers in the painted wooden rowboat, and lose yourself among the garden’s dreamlike maze of cypresses, Japanese maple and giant bamboo. Or just sit on your veranda, idly doodling dragonflies over an elderflower spritz and a light Piedmontese lunch prepared by the relais’ private chef. Nearby Lake Maggiore promises waterside pursuits on a grander scale, including mountain hikes, vineyard tours and boat trips to the extraordinary Borromean Islands.
Two enchanting lakeside villas, each with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and English garden-style waterfront verandas.
Check–Out
11am. Check-in, 3pm. Early check-in and late check-out can be arranged for a fee of €250 when availability permits.
Prices
Double rooms from £642.29 (€750), including tax at 10 per cent.
More details
Rates include an Italian breakfast including fresh breads and pastries, cereals, local honey, eggs, homemade fruit juices and more, which can be served on your veranda in fine weather. There’s a minimum two-night stay at weekends.
Also
Unfortunately, La Foleia is not suitable for wheelchair users.
At the hotel
Free WiFi, Lavazza coffee machine with compostable pods, Wilden Herbals teas, fruit basket, minibar, TV or projector, speaker or sound system, and bath products from Floris London and Höbe Pergh.
Our favourite rooms
Both villas at La Foleia are showstoppers. But, Padiglione edges it for sheer bonkers brilliance. Strap in for the drawing room fresco, a wraparound English garden scene with a few incongruous extras: palm fronds, lush fruits, tropical birds and…a monkey with a magnifying glass. Cast your gaze out through French windows and across the stone veranda to the kind of lily-covered lake that would make Monet swoon, or find a quiet nook beneath the gently sloping ceilings of the corridors and bedrooms, perfect for browsing coffee-table tomes on art and horticulture from the pavilion’s extensive library.
Poolside
The spring-fed natural rock pools overlooking La Foleia’s private lake are open between 10am and 7pm and heated to 38°C in winter.
Spa
Set in splendid gardens, La Foleia’s wellness area comes with two heated rock pools that overlook the lake to the riot of wisteria on the opposite shore, plus a Finnish sauna clad in cedar and antique oak, and an outdoor shower. Massage and other treatments can be organised on request.
Packing tips
You don’t have to be a Monet or a Manet to be inspired to pick up a brush here. A basic set of travel watercolours and a sketchbook will be enough for most amateurs to have a go at capturing the dusky pink twilight on balmy summer evenings. The lake’s largemouth bass population will mostly take care of the mosquitoes, but it wouldn’t hurt to carry a natural repellent like lemon eucalyptus oil with you, just in case.
Also
La Foleia’s magical gardens – all lotus-strewn lakes, lofty cypresses, bamboo forests and wild wisteria clouds – was designed by master horticulturist Gianfranco Giustina, head gardener for Isola Bella and Isola Madre on Lake Maggiore.
Children
La Foleia is a grown-up kind of place (think of the upholstery, darling), meaning there are no specific facilities or clubs for Little Smiths. However, a total of four bedrooms across the two villas does make this an option for family stays.
Sustainability efforts
La Foleia is all-natural. Its lily-filled lake, fed by spring water from the Ticino river, is a wildlife haven where fish, frogs, ducks, dragonflies, and even the occasional heron live in – relatively – perfect harmony. Solar panels power the property, and the private chef whips up Piedmontese specialities using organic produce sourced straight from local farms and gardens. You won’t find any plastic containers in your villa minibar and, similarly, there are no single-use products in the bathrooms.
Villa Ottagonale’s veranda glasshouse at dusk, with neighbour Villa Padiglione glowing dusky-pink across the water, is a tough act to follow.
Dress Code
Milan couture for Vogue-worthy fashion shoots on the lake, or draped around lichen-dappled statues in the gardens; cotton slacks and loose linens for catching the breeze on boat trips to the Borromean Islands.
Hotel restaurant
La Foleia’s private chef uses seasonal local produce to conjure regional Piedmont specialities, served on your veranda (or drawing room, depending on the weather). Knowledgeable staff can recommend the best restaurants-with-a-view in the nearby lake resorts of Arona, Stresa and Baveno.
Hotel bar
You can order drinks, including La Foleia’s signature elderflower spritz, until 8pm.
Last orders
You can order drinks to your villa – or if you’re feeling particularly decadent – to the rock pools, between noon and 8pm. It’s local beers and ready-mixed cocktails from the minibar after that.
Room service
It’s all room service here, with breakfast, lunch and dinner available between the hours of 8am and 9pm.
Lush botanical gardens surround a lily-dappled lake and two painterly waterside villas at La Foleia, an Impressionism-inspired idyll in the wooded hills of rural Piedmont, close to Lake Maggiore.
Planes
La Foleia is around a 35-minute drive from Milan Malpensa Airport. Transfers can be arranged for €100 to €115.
Trains
Trains from Milan and Malpensa Airport serve the station at Arona, a 10- to 15-minute drive from the hotel. Transfers from here to La Foleia cost €35 to €40.
Automobiles
Rural Piedmont isn’t exactly rife with public transport and your own set of wheels will come in more than handy for exploring the shores of Lake Maggiore. You’ll find all the usual rental suspects at the airport and there’s free private parking at La Foleia.
Worth getting out of bed for
Star of the show around these parts is Lake Maggiore: an endlessly scenic and vast body of water that spans three regions across two countries. La Foleia is just a five-minute drive from the lake's southern shores, from where water-based activities and fine road trips abound.
Try a drive up to the gloriously green Alpine hills that provide the backdrop to pretty Verbania, from where bucolic wanders through lush valleys and precipitous peaks are punctuated by chocolate-box villages and ridiculous views over the Borromean Gulf to the islands. Or head along the eastern shore for the likes of Angera, with its picturesque hillside churches and imposing mediaeval fortress, which houses a rather less fearsome collection of 1,000 dolls from across Europe.
Strike out on a self-guided road trip to Piedmont’s most celebrated vineyards around Ghemme and Gattinara, renowned for their bold and spicy reds. That said, a wine-tasting tour organised via La Foleia may prove less likely to end in potentially marriage-ending squabbles about who should be the designated driver and who the designated drinker.
The relais can also organise boat trips out onto the lake itself, including to the Borromean Islands of Isola Bella and Isola Madre with their opulent Renaissance-style palazzi and mix of Italianate and English country gardens. Guided trips to heritage sites including the flamboyant formal gardens at Villa Taranto in Verbania and Orta San Giulio’s romantic labyrinth of cobbled lanes and picture-perfect piazzas present further options for the insatiable sightseer.
Local restaurants
You’ve got your own private chef to whip up Pidemontese specialities at your whim. So why go anywhere else? Well, gourmands can reap rich rewards from the 15-minute drive to Borgomanero, where Trattoria dei Commercianti has been doing its thing for over a century. Set inside a 16th-century townhouse, this traditional family-run trattoria is (always a good sign) a firm favourite with locals. Grab a table beneath rustic beamed ceilings and get ready to feast on wild mushroom risotto, melt-in-the-mouth veal, regional cheese plates, tarte tatin and other Piedmontese favourites. There’s an extensive wine cellar with a focus on local Italian wines, including some of the finest from the Gattinara and Ghemme regions, and a pretty third-floor terrace for alfresco dining overlooking the town’s terracotta rooftops.
If it’s Borromean Island views you seek, look no further than La Rampolina, set high in the hills overlooking Lake Maggiore, just outside Stresa. Book a terrace table by the restaurant’s red-and-white-striped exterior and somewhat incongruous British telephone box, and brace yourself for an Italian feast. We’re talking bruschetti loaded with local anchovies, perfect pillows of gnocchi, cannelloni that oozes spinach and ricotta and a cabinet groaning with pungent regional cheeses. Don’t forget to leave room for the rich chocolate mousse and/or traditional tiramisu.
Local bars
You’re deep in wine country here, so it stands to reason you’ll want to sample an occasional drop of the good stuff. Frankly, it would be rude not to. Hit up the Fossati Wine Bar in pretty Arona for your fix. Here, overlooking Lake Maggiore and the imposing Borromeo Castle, knowledgeable staff will help you choose from a staggering selection of Italian wines, many of them from hyper-local vineyards.
If you like your cocktails with a side of gimmickry, look no further than Arona’s Beauty Bar, where the serving receptacles (tiki mugs, teacups, lab equipment) are often as colourful as the drinks contained within. Or make for nearby Senza Pensieri, the Brixton Cocktail Bar or Via Sempione 72 for more traditional takes on cocktail mixology.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this marvellous folly in the Piedmont hills, uncorked their souvenir bottle of barolo and shared eye-popping snaps of the villa to their socials, a full account of their off-grid Lake Maggiore adventure will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the beautifully bonkers world of La Foleia…
Visitors to La Foleia could be forgiven for thinking they’d stepped straight into an Impressionist painting. The lilies on the lake are maximum Monet, the villas pure Pissarro. Heck, there’s even a starry-night mural painted on the ceiling of Villa Ottagonale’s black-marble bathroom. Gloriously OTT drawing rooms overlook the lake and gardens and come stuffed with antiques and objets d’art sourced from vintage markets across Europe. There’s an almost dreamlike quality about it all. If, that is, you’re in the habit of dreaming about colour-coordinated bookshelves, man-sized neoclassical urns, Finnish saunas, patterned chaises longues, and wild frescoes featuring watermelons and monkeys. It’s the kind of place you wouldn’t be at all surprised to find Miss Marple mulling over a murder, or Poirot pondering a poisoning; a folly by name, surrounded by nature.
