Orta San Giulio is a historical town located at Lake Orta, the smallest and least-known northern Italy’s sub alpine lake. It is located west of Lake Maggiore in a less-crowded part of the Lakes District. Driving from Milan Airport will take around one hour. The town is built on the eastern bank of Lake Orta close to Isola San Giulio, an island well known for Sacro Monte, which is a site of pilgrimage and worship. In 2003, the Sacro Monte of Orta was declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. 

We reached the place when the sun was exactly on top of our head. From far, we could see Isola San Giulio floating in the middle of the lake, awesome !  The Italian Lakes hasen’t opened up all their treasures to the tourist yet. Also, there is a code of silence that surrounds Lake Orta. Even the the visitors reluctant to tell others about its beauty for fear of increasing the number of visitors.

The legend goes that this island, at 400m from the shore of Orta, was once a rock inhabited by snakes and terrible monsters (probably symbol of the presence of heretic Arians) till 390. When Saint Giulio set foot on it, walking the lake water on his cloak and guided by his staff through the storm, the Saint founded a church, where we was later to be buried.

Posing in front of the Villa Bossi, the oldest document in Italy where it’s indicated precisely the existence of a legal provision for witchcraft.     Orta San Giulio’s woman arrested and prosecuted for the accusation of witchcraft. In 1340, the burning of the alleged witch took place. Anyway, she was not the first witch to be prosecuted in Italy, but certainly the first witch with some documented information. Even though her name is not known, she was referred simply as the “Orta’s Witch”.

This place is so quiet, couldn’t hear a sound at all if we didn’t make any. No body was seen in the building as well. In fact, we didn’t see any local people except the tourists. 

 All the things sold here are hand made by the lady owner. She was in her 60-70, I guess. We took some time to check on her art works, some of them are nice but the price is quite expensive.   I thought there would be some shops like this ahead waiting for us….Only after we went back to the square one, then I realized this is the-one-and-the-only-one shop in the whole island.