G. The Jetty

Audio narration by eArs G. The Jetty (Anna Brovelli AB, Lorenzo Franzetti LF, Remo Cardana RC, Remo Cardana RC)Narrator: Rather than dividing the towns along its shores, the lake connects them and has been a silent witness to both minor and major events.The jetty is where ferries depart for and arrive from Arona, on the opposite side of the lake.A century ago, the ferry wasn’t the only way to cross. There were also local boatmen who offered private passage. Lorenzo Franzetti tells us about those times.LF: “There was a real ‘war’ between the boatmen, each trying to win over passengers.As soon as people arrived at the shore, they would surround them and compete to persuade them to choose their boat. The last of those boatmen was know as Pio Lei because he always addressed everyone so politely, using the Italian formal address ‘lei!’”N: Others simply took matters into their own hands, such as Anna Brovelli, who crossed the lake in her own boat as a girl to attend middle school in Arona.AB: “My father, Carletto Brovelli, was a boat builder and he built me a beautiful sailboat so I could get to school every morning. I even navigated in the fog: my father taught me how to use a compass, so I never had trouble finding my way.”N: When she grew up, Anna followed in her father’s footsteps and opened her own boatyard on Lake Maggiore called Nautica Brovelli.AB: “One of my clients was Piero Chiara, who wrote The Bishop’s Room, which is set right here on the lake. His novel was turned into a film and he insisted that I should provide the boats, both the one seen in the movie, and the one used by the crew to shoot scenes on the water.”N: The literary world, this time in Arona, also gave Angera its old nickname, as Remo Cardana now explain.RC: “It came from a book by Pietro Osso. During the festival for the Madonna della Riva, Pietro, who was from Arona, spotted the fairground tents across the lake. So he got in a boat and came over to Angera. And when he saw the women of Angera, he exclaimed: ‘Hey… Angera is a town full of beautiful women!’”N: Is that still true today? That is for you to say!