Lake Iseo by Lee Marshall

The Lago d’Iseo, cradled in a deep glacial valley north-west of Brescia, doesn’t feature on most tour operators’ Italian lake brochures. That’s one reason to go there. Another is the unpredictability of the scenery. On the map, the lake looks like a circus seal poised to catch a ball. On the ground, its twists and turns, and the steep, thickly-wooded slopes that rise up from the water - especially to the west - make Iseo a place of continually shifting perspectives. A promontory jutting out from the eastern shore reluctantly admits - as the steamer approaches - that it’s really an island. What looks like the head of the lake opens up as one rounds the next corner to reveal another sheet of water. Morning mists can further confuse the eye; the midday sun can dazzle it into submission.

As if to confirm its trompe l’oeil vocation, the lake is poised between two freaks of nature. A few miles to the east, up a steep valley, are a collection of bizarre rock formations. The Pyramids of Zone may sound like a New Age cure - but these spindly pinnacles of soft rock, most of which have large boulders perched on top like small atomic explosions, are as Ice Age as they come. Left by a passing glacier, the boulders acted as umbrellas to the softer rock beneath, protecting it from pluvial erosion. More tricks are in store if you take the road that heads west from Lovere, a prim Medieval town on the northern reaches of the lake. Here, near the village of SoltoCollina, is the Valle del Freddo - a rock-strewn valley where even in summer icy draughts emanate from the depths, like a huge natural air-conditioning system. Though only 400 metres above sea level, the valley has the kind of Alpine vegetation normally found at the 2,000-metre mark.

Tourists are welcome on Iseo, but they do not run the whole show as in some parts of the larger lakes. Partly this is because Iseo is not a big enough solar radiator to create its own Mediterranean microclimate; autumn comes earlier here than on Como, Maggiore or Garda, and olives take the place of lemons, while horse chestnuts stand in admirably for palm trees. This is a place where people live and work, and sometimes the work is of the kind more associated with the industrial belt between Milan and Brescia to the south - as at Tavernuola Bergamasca on the western shore, where a huge quarry and cement works eats into the hillside.

But Lake Iseo has a certain unrestrained elegance too, without the frilly excesses of Stresa or Sirmione. This is most evident in Iseo itself, the lake’s main town, with its handsome waterside promenade and its wide squares lined by low arcades - as in Siena, civilisation emanates from the very groundplan. Phalanxes of chairs and tables occupy strategic points of the main square, Piazza Garibaldi. Here locals and the occasional clued-up tourist sit drinking aperitivi before heading off for dinner at Il Volto - a friendly wine bar which also does some of the most creative cooking for miles around, based on fresh local ingredients, including game and lake fish.

From Sulzano and Sale Marasino on the eastern shore, boats ply back and forth to Monte Isola, which proclaims itself “Europe’s largest lake island”. With its uneven dromedary outline this is also one of the steepest - as anyone will discover who sets off to climb up through the olive and walnut trees to the pretty thirteenth-century church of Madonna della Ceriola on top. Monte Isola supports no less than eleven villages, most as sleepy as one could wish for - at least until the school bus arrives. There are no cars: as the tourist brochure puts it, “the 1,800 inhabitants of this lacustrine oasis move internally by motorcycles”. Sitting on the wall of the quay watching a plump matron attempting to balance herself and six shopping bags on a Vespa is, in fact, the island’s main form of entertainment.

This article originally appeared in Conde Nast Traveller (UK)