Have you missed me? I am here, but too busy this year as I have to work and study a lot in order to gain more knowledge which will help me to build a new carreer.

I am around but I don't have the time to communicate so often with you as in the past. I believe you will understand me and you will enjoy my new blog about the lakes that Italy and Switzerland shares, Lago Como and Lago Majore.

I chose this area to spend the days around the New Year's Eve and start a new and very promising year for me.

I decided to travel with my aunt, Yiota, by ship in Ancona, Italy and continue my trip by bus until Milano which was my base for this exploration.

I started my exploration from the Lake Como and the city of Como.

Lake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy . It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over 400 m (1320 ft) deep it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe and the bottom of the lake is more than 200 metres (656 ft) below sea-level.

The lake is shaped much like the character “Y”. The northern branch begins at the town of Colico, while the towns of Como and Lecco sit at the ends of the southwestern and southeastern branches respectively. The small towns of Bellagio, Menaggio and Varenna are situated at the intersection of the three branches of the lake: a triangular boat service operates between them.

Lake Como is fed in large part by the Adda River, which enters the lake near Colico and flows out at Lecco. This geological conformation makes the southwestern branch a dead end, and so Como, unlike Lecco, is often flooded.

The mountainous pre-alpine territory between the two southern arms of the lake—between Como, Bellagio and Lecco —is known as the Larian Triangle, or Triangolo lariano . The source of the river Lambro is here. At the centre of the triangle, the town of Canzo is the seat of the Comunita montana del Triangolo Lariano , an association of the 31 municipalities which represent the 71,000 inhabitants of the area.

The lake's name in Latin is Larius , Italianized as Lario , but this name is rarely used; it is usually called Lago di Como (literally " Lake of Como "). In guidebooks the lake may be variously described as "Lake Como", "Lake of Como", or "Como Lake". The lake's name comes from the town of Como, known to the Romans as Comum.

While the town of Como is referred to as " Como " the lake itself is never referred to solely by this name. (This is not true of another lake in Italy , Lake Garda , where "Garda" may refer to either a town on its shores, or the lake).

Duomo (cathedral), begun in 1396 on the site of the previous Romanesque church of Santa Maria Maggiore . The facade was built in 1457, with the characteristic rose window and a portal flanked by two Renaissance statues of the famous Comaschi Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger. The construction was finished in 1740.

The interior is on the Latin cross plan, with Gothic nave and two aisles divided by pilasters, while the transept wing and the relative apses are from the Renaissance age. It includes a carved 16th century choir and tapestries on cartoons by Giuseppe Arcimboldi. The dome is a rococo structure by Filippo Juvarra. Other artworks include 16th-17th century tapestries and 16th Century paintings by Bernardino Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari.

My next stop was Lugano, a lakeside city in Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of southern Switzerland. Part of a temperate micro-climate, Lugano offers palm trees, picturesque boulevards, stunning views of the lake and the Alps, and plenty of opportunity for outdoor and indoor activities. Lugano also makes a good base for visiting other cities and sites in the area. The city is a pleasant place to relax in the summertime and is only half an hour away from Lake Como.

Lugano lies in a bay on the northern side of Lake Lugano , surrounded by numerous mountains offering splendid viewpoints. The traffic-free historic town centre, the numerous buildings in Italianate Lombardy style, the exclusive museums, the mountains, lake and a packed calendar of events all invite visitors to see the sights, soak up the atmosphere – and enjoy "dolce far niente". Thanks to its mild climate, Lugano is a popular tourist destination in the spring when the camellias are in bloom.

Belvedere Park – the lakeside promenade is fringed by trees and lush flower-beds. The park is right beside the footpath which goes along the side of the lake as far as Paradiso.

Monte Bre (925 m) – Lugano's closest mountain can be reached by funicular railway from Cassarate on the outskirts of Lugano. Wonderful panorama of the town, lake and mountains, stretching right over the border into Italy .

Monte San Salvatore (912 m) – from the top of the "sugarloaf" (reached by funicular railway from Lugano-Paradiso) you can walk down the panoramic footpath to Carona and then on to Morcote.

San Lorenzo Cathedral – set above the Old Town , it is worth a visit with its facade in the Lombardy Renaissance style, and countless frescoes and valuable Baroque artefacts inside.

Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli - in this former monastery church, built about 1500, are fine frescoes by the masters of the Renaissance.

Hesse Museum in Montagnola – small, intimate museum for the writer and adopted son of Ticino, Hermann Hesse, who lived and wrote in southern Switzerland for at least half a century.

Lake Maggiore (in Italian : Lago Maggiore) is the most westerly of the three large prealpine lakes of Italy and the second largest after Lake Garda.

It has a surface area of about 213 km², a maximum length of 54 km and, at its widest, is 12 km. The lake basin has tectonic-glacial origins and its volume is 37 km³.

Its main tributaries are the Ticino the Maggia, the Toce (by which it receives the outflow of Lake Orta ) and the Tresa (which is the sole emissary of Lake Lugano). The rivers Verzasca, Giona, and Cannobino also flow into the lake. Its outlet is the Ticino which, in turn, joins the river Po just south-east of Pavia.

The lake's jagged banks are surrounded by the Prealps of Piedmont and Lombardy . The western bank is in Piedmont (provinces of Novara and Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola) and the eastern in Lombardy (province of Varese), whereas the most northerly section extends thirteen kilometres into Switzerland, where it constitutes the lowest point above sea-level in that entire country.

The climate is mild in both summer and winter, producing Mediterranean vegetation, with beautiful gardens growing rare and exotic plants. Well-known gardens include those of the Isola Madre, Isola Bella and the Isole di Brissago, that of the Villa Taranto in Verbania, and the Alpinia botanical garden above Stresa.

We have the time and we decided to enjoy a small cruise in Lago Majore visiting the two most important islands, the Isola Bella and the Isola dei Pescatori.

Isola Bella is one of the Borromean Islands of Lago Maggiore in north Italy. The island is situated in the Borromean Gulf 400 meters from the lakeside town of Stresa. Isola Bella is 320 meters long by 400 meters wide and is entirely occupied by the Palazzo Borromeo and its Italianate garden.

Isola Bella is a popular tourist attraction, with a regular ferry service from Stresa, Baveno, Pallanza and Intra. It plays host to the annual Stresa music festival.

The island is about 350 meters long by 100 meters wide. A narrow street running along its spine is joined by cobbled alleys to the promenade which encircles the island. The promenade is frequently flooded and the houses built against it are constructed to allow for this.

The church of San Vittore (Victor the Moor) retains traces of an ancient chapel which was probably constructed for the monks of Scozzola (an abbey of San Donato di Sesto Calende founded by Liutardo, bishop of Pavia, in the mid ninth century. The church was previously dedicated to S. Gangolfo (Gangulphus), whose veneration is linked with the Abbey of San Donato.

When you are at the islands you have a nice view of Streza which is a small town of about 5,000 inhabitants on the shores of the Lago (Lake) Maggiore and situated on the road and rail routes to the Simplon pass in the region of Piedmont in Italy. Since the early 20th century, the main source of income has been the tourist trade. Like other locations on Lago Maggiore, it benefits from spectacular views as well as areas of historical and architectural interest.

Time for Locarno now, the capital of the Locarno district , located on the northern tip of Lake Maggiore ( Lago Maggiore ) in the Swiss canton of Ticino, close to Ascona at the foot of the Alps. It has a population of about 15,000 (60'000 for the urban area including Ascona ). The official language of Locarno is Italian . It is the 74th biggest city in Switzerland by population.

An important film festival, the Festival Internazionale del Cinema di Locarno, takes place every year in August in the Piazza Grande .

The Locarno Treaties were negotiated here in 1925. In January 2004, the Italian historian Marino Vigano speculated that Locarno 's castle may have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci.

This characterful old town enjoys the most glorious of locations, on a broad sweeping curve of a bay in the lake, and also clocks up the most sunshine hours of anywhere in Switzerland. The arcades and piazzas of the town centre are overlooked by subtropical gardens of palms, camellias, bougainvillea, cypress, oleanders and magnolias, which flourish on the lakeside promenades and cover the wooded slopes which crowd in above the town centre.

Locarno slumbered under Swiss occupation after 1503, but with independence in the nineteenth century it found its feet as the most elegant of the country's lakeside resorts. In 1925 its backdrop of Belle Epoque hotels and piazza cafes served as the setting for the Treaty of Locarno , signed by the European powers in a failed effort to secure peace following World War I.

The seeds planted at Locarno exploded into war again in 1939, but the town went from strength to strength during the 1950s and after, growing in chic-ness year on year. These days, Locarno focuses all its considerable resources on tourism, and draws in two very different sets of customers: one, from the German-speaking north, arrive to test out their hiking boots, while the other, from fog- and smog-bound Milan , come to test out their sunglasses. The cobbled alleys of Locarno 's Old Town, lined with Renaissance facades, can get entirely overrun with the rich and wannabe-famous on summer weekends, yet still – in the midst of the hubbub – the place manages to retain its sun-drenched cool.

The first day of the new year was a happy day for Locarno. A big reception at the centre of the town with a happy band and plenty of food and champangne offered a huge smile at the faces of the people who celebrated the new year.

I hope you enjoyed my travel to the North Italy and South Switzerland and you l have plenty of information now to plan a trip there.