We exited our Lake Iseo tour boat at Monte Isola Island. It's the largest island in Lake Iseo and the largest inhabited lake island in Europe. The island rises steeply from the lake and is almost 2,000 feet high. The island has 1,600 residents and it has grade schools but no high school. We passed a villa that was built in the 1400's that looked very much like our California "mission" architecture.

The island is still a fishing village, but we could see that tourism is encroaching, like by the number of bike rentals available. The island has hiking trails all around, we were told, but my guess is that they are pretty steep trails.

We visited a "net builder" store. This is a business that used to solely make fishing nets. Fishing, however, has declined greatly as an industry. The net builders didn't want to quit their business, so they just started making any kind of nets that anyone was willing to purchase. You can see some of their products in their store. Also, they have made goal nets for the World Cup games several times. The owner said that he didn't want to make nets for the World Cup any longer because each time he has done it, Italy has done poorly in the football games. On another side note, when the Christo art project was here in 2016, this net maker said that he did 4 years-worth of business in two weeks.

We saw many other businesses but the ones that impressed me the most were the ones that dealt with old Italian foods, like the one below. They had plenty of products hanging out for inspection.

It was also impressive just walking along the docks. On one boat dock, I found a screened box where someone was drying meats and persimmons. I don't know if this was a commercial operation or just someone who lived on the island and needed more sunlight.

Vicky and I decided to get something to eat to tide us over after all our walking. We stopped at a lakeside restaurant called the Love Garden. We thought that we hadn't ordered very much. We ordered a pizza, some focaccia bread, meats and cheeses. Our expectations were that the meats, cheese, and Focaccia bread were smaller side dishes. I had a beer and Vicky had an Aperol spritz. We did our best with this snack.