No place like Como: Why now is the time to soak up the romance of the Italian lakes
Advice for those planning a visit to Italy's Lake District: take your own cutlery.
Otherwise you may be charged a small supplement for a knife and fork to cut your pizza. It would be harsh to judge an entire region by one small lunch-time episode - particularly the Italian Lakes, whose effect is generally so charming and calming.
But there it was at the foot of the menu in an outdoor pizzeria on the shores of Lake Como. Clienti who desired the use of eating-irons would face un supplemento.
Stunning: Lake Como attracts celebrities such as George Clooney who has a home here
Even in New York, where you can be charged $5 for an extra fork to share dessert, they haven't yet thought of that one.
The Lakes, which swim through the Alps like a family of benign serpents, are sometimes called Italy's best-kept secret. It's one well worth exploring at this time of year, when everything has a sleepy, end-of-season feel but the weather is still (mostly) good.
Flights from Heathrow to Milan, the best access point, take under two hours, around the same time it takes to fly to Nice. And in many ways, the Italian Lakes provide what the French Riviera once did: a sense that it's still rather special to be British.
There for a three-day break with my student daughter, Jessica, earlier this month, I had vague preconceptions of scenic grandeur combined with Italian comfort - a kind of Switzerland-plus-pasta.
What I didn't expect was to find the world of E.M. Forster so perfectly preserved. The Lakes were no secret to well-to-do Edwardian travellers, and their influence lives on, from the lofty old hotels w! ith name s like the Regina Palace and Grand Hotel Bristol to the formal promenades and ornate iron pavilions - seemingly transplanted from pre-Great War Brighton or Bournemouth - where you buy ferry tickets.
Picturesque: Lake Maggiore is the biggest after Lake Garda and also said to be the sunniest
On an esplanade beside Lake Como, we saw a class of English lady water-colourists straight out of a Forster novel - albeit eclipsed by a tall and stylish Italian woman in designer jeans painting on her own.
We stayed on Lake Maggiore, at 68km the longest of the serpent family and the biggest after Lake Garda. It's also reputedly the sunniest and clearest, though even perfect visibility veils the far horizon, where Switzerland takes it over.
There's a Maggiore trance, which we two hyper city-dwellers fell into as instantly as those Forsterian tourists a century ago. One can be quite happy just staring at the placid, pearly water, the gliding swans, bustling ferries and their background of earthy Alps veined with marble - like giant servings of tiramisu.
Our hotel, the Grand Majestic, proved a sumptuous period piece, with its stone balustrades and clustering palms. Despite its name, the hotel is not at all stuffy, offering a thoroughly modern standard of comfort.
You can be the last person left on its terrace and there'll still be a waiter on hand to serve you (or leave you alone, if you prefer, with a genial: 'No problem'.)
Water fantasy: Isola Bella is one of two main isles in the Borromean Islands, accessible by ferry
Lake Maggiore is unusual in having its own self-contained archipelago, the Borromean Islands, named after the hugely wealthy Borromeo family, who built their summer palazzi there (a! nd who s till own the majority of the islands).
We visited the two main islands, Isola Madre and Isola Bella, on one of the public ferries that Italians do so well. Blue-shirted crew members welcomed us aboard with a smiling 'Prego', like maitres d' showing us to the best table.
Isola Madre is the homelier of the two Borromea palaces, surrounded by frothing bougainvillea and strutting white peacocks, and principally housing the family's extraordinary collection of miniature theatres and marionettes.
Isola Bella has the show-off palace, with 200 rooms, including six underground grottoes where the family would escape the summer heat. Here, you can see the canopied bed in which Napoleon spent a night with Josephine during his first Italian campaign in 1797.
On the islands, more recently, Countess Lavinia Borromeo married John Elkann, heir to the Agnelli car empire - further guaranteeing that the Borromeos never need to borrow anything.
Lake Como, two hours' drive away, is said to be the most beautiful of all, and has always attracted celebrity villa-owners, from Gianni Versace to Richard Branson and George Clooney.
Idyll: A private villa on San Paolo Island in Lake Iseo, a region where excellent sparkling wine is produced
In Mary Shelley's prototype horror story, it's near Lake Como that Baron Frankenstein gets married.
From the lakeside town of Lenno, we took a shuttle-boat to Villa Balbianello, another monument to the prodigious wealth that successive tides of Italian Communism and Fascism somehow left intact.
On the journey, our boat's skipper pointed out George Clooney's villa.
'Couldn't you just get him to come out and say hello?' an American woman pleaded. Villa Balbianello was built for an 18th century cardinal, Angelo Maria Durini, who had the flexible attitude to celibacy so common in th! at era.
From the cardinal's dressing-room, a secret passage led down to the guest bedrooms, with a door that locked only from the inside. The villa's last private owner was Guido Monzino, a famous adventurer who led an expedition to the North Pole and the first Italian quest to climb Mount Everest.
Monzino amassed a huge collection of treasures - including a dresser that belonged to Louis XIV of France, and Lord Nelson's campaign chest.
Each lake in the family has something special: Lugano with its superior walking; Garda with its wide open spaces for watersports; tiny, unspoilt Orta.
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Personally, I have a soft spot for little-known Lake Iseo, near Franciacorta, the only Italian wine region whose sparkling white seriously competes with champagne.
An island was bought by the Beretta family, makers of James Bond's favourite handgun. Incidentally, the bad taste left by that 'cash for cutlery' scam was just a one-off.
At two restaurants in the Maggiore area - Ristorante Milano in Pallanza and Verbano on Isola dei Pescatori - I had the best food I've ever eaten in Italy.
As with all good Italian cooking, my rigatoni and tortellini didn't come in huge wodges but in perf! ectly-ju dged portions that were completely satisfying yet still left me interested in dessert.
And in both places, the price included knives and forks.
Travel Facts
Kirker Holidays offers three nights at the Grand Hotel Majestic on Lake Maggiore from 678 per person.
Price includes three nights on a bed and breakfast basis with flights to Milan Malpensa airport and return private car transfers. Call Kirker on 020 7593 2283 or visit www.kirkerholidays.com
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