They say somewhere on an island far away there’s a city of neverending stairs. It has been built many years back on a steep hill, promising its settlers a life of serenity in the golden evening light. Its stairs go high, leading the way of hopes so it feels just natural to everybody to follow them around every corner, counting every cobblestone, passing through every gate. You can call it exploration if you want, even though it never wanted to really map every path, just to push higher, to see more, to find out from where this scent of baking bread is coming, who belongs that joyful echo carried by the warm stone walls, or who brewed this 10th Anniversary Evolution BeerBrugna with sour melancholy and sweet candied plums… A shy touch of ferns on your arm and the eye is caught by yet another path, beaten stones luring trespassers with soft mossy mats below and peaceful chirping of invisible sparrows ahead. Chances are you won’t come back, that you will never climb down these heights. Only few ever did that. The ones who stayed wanted up, up, and some occupied the old houses, some built new steps to reach their new homes, slowly extending the almighty rule of the city of unrelenting stairs towards azure skies, a Babel tower of hopeful souls and serene stubbornness, where every adventure is at a hand’s reach, around the cracked stucco, on the next level, higher up. The ones who left too scared of changing their restless ways, spread the word about the dangers of a beauty too lonely, and travelers started to avoid in their journeys the city of fascinating stairs. Nowadays only lonely adventurers, those who left nothing behind, still dare to gamble their destinies and visit Isola Bella, the town where everybody reached their dreams of heights, the town where happiness means settling always further and not looking back, the town from where you don’t want to return anymore.
