Last summer the burgee of the DCA flew on Lake Maggiore. We had started our holiday in Switzerland, camping at Gwatt on Lake Thun. The site had much to commend it, superb views of the Jungfrau and Eiger and direct access to the Lake by a small sheltered harbour. We enjoyed a week of superb weather accompanied by very little wind and our Heron dinghy Petal was rowed more than she was sailed. At the end of this time the weather broke, the mountains disappeared and although there was now wind there was also cold and we decided we had to move on.

Trailing the Heron over the St. Gotthard Pass was a once in a lifetime experience — next time I will take the tunnel! The descent into Italy is built round thirty seven of the most hairpinny hairpins in the world. These normally are quite manageable, but a boat behind leaves no alternative but to enter each turn in the wrong lane, and more often than not there is a Maserati or similar animal with all horns blazing coming up the other way and both nerve and skill are needed in plenty.

Breaking camp, crossing two 7,000ft passes and a frontier, finding a new site and pitching camp made for an exciting, demanding and exhausting day, but it was worth it. We chose a site near Cannobio on Lake Maggiore, right on the waterside and superbly situated. We are not really dinghy-cruisers but camper-cruisers, for like Joan Abrams we are five in the family, three of whom in our case are under ten. But both for us and the real sleep-in-the-boat enthusiasts Maggiore has an enormous amount to offer. First it is a large, beautiful yet empty lake set in superb mountain scenery. My map shows how it is surrounded by camp sites sufficient for sailing by day and camping in different sites at night (we however set up a permanent base and sailed from that). It is warm and sunny, and the peaches, grapes and wine are virtually free.

The winds on Maggiore were consistent, reliable and force 4 or less. A fascinating feature is that they change direction halfway through the day. In the morning the Tramontana blows from the north, in the afternoon the Inverna from the south. The thing is so reliable that I got my wife to row in the lull period and astonished her by asking her to ship the oars as, at the end of my count of ten, a new wind would appear from the opposite direction. It did — I could see it coming over the water.

Some fine waves are built up in the northern part of the lake, which we came to prefer as the less populated and more beautiful section. I would recommend camping/sailing in Italy as the Swiss end seemed too fashionable, though we went on foraging trips into Switzerland for all provisions except fruit and wine, for it was much cheaper.

I could find no evidence of any regulations, water taxes or sea-worthiness tests in Italy, and when we used the harbours on Maggiore no-one seemed to mind. The Swiss are more business-like in these matters. There were quite astonishingly few sailing boats around. We read of storm winds in the Gulf of Baveno farther down the lake but experienced nothing; perhaps we were just lucky. To us Maggiore was the perfect camping-sailing country and we look forward to a return visit.