Varese, Italy Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

VARESE is a gracious purpose-built town of gardens, marble Fifties villas and rectangular Fascist-era buildings, fringed with shoe factories. Its inhabitants are every bit as obsessed with style as the Milanese and look almost as perfect as the window-display mannequins in the designer shops that line the main street, Corso Matteotti. The centre of town is Piazza Monte Grappa, not far from the city's main attraction, the formal gardens around the long, pink Palazzo Estense , built in the eighteenth century for the Este Dukes of Modena (daily 8am–sunset, until 11pm July & Aug; free). The raison … more »