Isola Madre or Isola dei Pescatori: Which Borromean Island Is Worth Your Time?
Updated October 20, 2026 · 5 min read
If you can add only one island to Isola Bella, make it Isola dei Pescatori: the Isola dei Pescatori and Isola Bella hop-on hop-off boat costs €12, has 4.6 stars from 370 reviews and leaves you the money and the time for lunch in the village. Choose Isola Madre instead if gardens are the reason you came. It is the better island for plants and quiet, and it costs more: the boat is a little dearer and the garden has its own ticket.
The two islands side by side
| Isola Madre | Isola dei Pescatori | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Botanical garden and palace | Fishing village |
| Entry ticket | €23 for adults, €15 for ages 6 to 15, free below 6 | No ticketed sight |
| Boat with Isola Bella | €13, 4.4 from 152 reviews | €12, 4.6 from 370 reviews |
| Boat alone | €13, 4.1 from 11 reviews | €9, 4.8 from 42 reviews |
| Best for | Plants and a garden walk | A meal by the water, wandering |
Isola Madre
The operator calls it the largest of the Borromean Islands, about eight hectares with a mild climate. The palace stands at the highest point and has looked over the lake since the sixteenth century; once a private home, it is now a museum. Before it became a botanical garden, the island was farmland with vines, olive trees and cherry orchards. The first greenhouses date from 1826. The plants the operator names today include camellias, azaleas, rhododendrons and magnolias, alongside palms and exotic conifers.
Those are mostly spring-flowering plants, so a visit in spring is the likelier way to see the garden in bloom. That is our reading, not the operator’s claim. Ask the operator or read recent reviews if flowers are the point of your trip.
The garden opens at 10 am. Until 24 October in 2026 the last entry was 5 pm; from 25 October it was 4 pm. The season ran from 12 March to 8 November. The same rules as on Isola Bella apply: strollers, umbrellas and large backpacks are not allowed in the palace. The operator warns that the island’s layout can make access difficult for visitors with reduced mobility, and that visitors with a certified disability of 30 % or more enter free; call the operator before you go.
If Isola Madre is your main island, the Isola Madre entry ticket costs €23, the same as the adult price on the operator’s own site, with 4.7 stars from 32 reviews. The Isola Madre and Isola Bella hop-on hop-off boat costs €13 and has 4.7 stars from 43 reviews.
Isola dei Pescatori
It is the only one of the three that people live on all year; one count in 2018 found about 25 residents. The village has narrow lanes, houses with long balconies once used to dry fish, and a small church, San Vittore, with origins in the eleventh century and a rebuilding in the seventeenth and eighteenth. Restaurants serve lake fish such as perch and whitefish.
There is no palace and no garden to buy a ticket for. That is its advantage on a day with fixed garden hours: it works at any time, and it is where the restaurants are. The description of the hop-on hop-off boat to Pescatori and Isola Bella mentions a lakeside lunch on Pescatori and says the palace on Isola Bella is not included in the price.
The downside is that it is small, and you share it with every other visitor on the same boats. If you go for the quiet, expect to share it.
Which to pick
- You have one afternoon, and Isola Bella is already in the plan: Pescatori. It is next to Isola Bella on the boat route and costs less.
- You love gardens or are travelling with someone who does: Madre. Plan the garden as the main visit of the day, not an add-on.
- You want a lunch by the water: Pescatori, where the restaurants are.
- You want to see all three: the 3-island ticket is the answer; costs and order are in all three islands in one day.
More about the palace island itself is in Is Isola Bella worth it?. The ticket variants are listed under Borromean Islands tours.
The verdict
For most visitors, Isola Bella plus Isola dei Pescatori on the €12 hop-on hop-off ticket is the better pair: close together, one cheap boat, and a meal included in the plan rather than a ticket. Pick Isola Madre if the garden is what you came for, and give it the afternoon.
