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Regional specialities and ancient recipes in a modern room filled with New Age music (see Il Sole di Ranco, Lake Maggiore).

For more than 150 years, the Brovelli family has run an inn and osteria in the tiny lakeside village of Ranco. The restaurant – serving high-class creative cuisine – has summertime seating on shaded terraces. The wine list stupefies with more than 1,200 choices, and they’ll set up a wine tasting to accompany your degustazione (tasting) menu.

The better of the Four Seasons’ two restaurants is in the hotel’s basement. The creative fare is exquisite and pricey (see Il Teatro del Four Seasons, Milan).

Milan’s youngest deluxe hotel has surprised a jaded public by creating two superlative restaurants. The better of the two is the more refined basement eatery where chef Sergio Mei oversees creative Mediterranean dishes. The degustazione (tasting) menu is magnificent.

An over-the-top Art Nouveau overhaul of this villa owned by the flamboyant poet, adventurer and national hero Gabriele d’Annunzio was financed by none other than Mussolini himself – basically as a bribe to silence d’Annunzio’s criticism of the fascist government (see Il Vittoriale, Gardone Riviera).

This kitschy Art Nouveau villa was created by poet and adventurer Gabriele d’Annunzio, a flamboyant man who once flew a biplane over Vienna in 1918 to prove an invasion was possible, and in 1919 used private troops to take over a border town ceded to Yugoslavia, earning himself acclaim as a national hero and the enmity of those in power. The villa represents his life, loves and philosophy, which are cheerfully explained by guides. The famous plane is preserved in an outbuilding (see Il Vittoriale, Gardone Riviera).

In 1999, Milan’s horse track became home to a bronze horse cast by an American foundation determined to bring to fruition Leonardo da Vinci’s oft-sketched equine tribute to Lodovico il Moro.

The Iseolago mixes the best of a resort hotel with the class of a fine inn, so you get parquet floors and silk drapes but also a modern fitness centre, two pools, tennis courts, and watersports at the beach. The one drawback is that it is in the suburbs, so you need a car.

Garda’s largest island once supported a monastery that attracted the great medieval saints: Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua and Bernardino of Siena. The monastery was destroyed by Napoleon and replaced in 1890– 1903 with a Neo-Gothic Venetian-style villa and luxuriant English and Italianate gardens. Two-hour tours take place twice a week and, though the admission price is high, it does include a boat ride and a snack.