Orta San Giulio, Piedmont, Italy
Orta, the Lord’s watercolour, seems painted on silk, with the Sacro Monte towering above it . . . and facing it, the Isle of San Giulio, resembling Dante’s airy purgatory, hesitant between water and the heavens.
—Piero Chiara (1913–1986), Italian writer
Nestled between the Alps in Northern Italy, Lago d’Orta is the smallest but most peaceful and romantic of the region’s glacial lakes, and Isola di San Giulio is the most beautiful and sacred of the region’s islands. The magnificent Basilica di San Giulio rises from the center of the island. At the lake’s edge is the picturesque town of Orta San Giulio, home to Santa Maria Assunta Church, consecrating the end of the plague in the fifteenth century, and Sacro Monte (Sacred Hills) d’Orta, featuring twenty chapels with life-sized statues and frescoes devoted to Saint Francis of Assisi.
This enchanting place offers a serenely beautiful setting for a Catholic wedding or a spiritual retreat. From Milan, travel by rental car, taxi, or shuttle to Orta San Giulio.
Take a ferry or water taxi to Isola di San Giulio and reflect on Divine love in the hilltop sanctuary housing the glass coffin of Saint Julius.
In the fourth century A.D., brothers Giulio and Giuliano erected ninety-nine chapels in the region. After driving an evil serpent off the island using only the sign of the cross, Giulio (patron saint of Novara) built his hundredth and last church on the site where the tenth-century Basilica di San Giulio stands today.