Rust red and burnt sienna speckle the green mountain rising from Lake Iseo. Golden autumn sunlight shimmers on the water. Monte Isola, Italy’s largest lake island, is a peak of sheer cliffs and dense forest, dotted with old fishing hamlets and hillside villages, each as pretty as the terraced villas of Lake Como and Garda, but with far fewer visitors. I arrive at the small port town of Peschiera Maraglio – where striped wooden boats jut from the water like the gondolas of Venice – on a ferry from Sulzano, a five-minute hop across the water. “Only three people on the island are allowed to own a car: the priest, the doctor and the mayor,” says Chiara, my tour guide from Brescia. Residents can zip up and down the steep island roads on mopeds, and a small fleet of van-sized buses trundle around throughout the day, but nearly all cars are forbidden and visitors have to explore on foot or bike. Even bikes are banned from boats at the weekend. Not that it matters: the …

Why go now? Located just north of the Centrale train station, Bolognina neighbourhood is more than just a Little Bologna. It is a completely different world from the medieval maze of palaces, churches and towers that define the city’s “Centro Storico”, which is increasingly filled with crowds of tourists as Bologna joins the big league of Italian getaway destinations. There is an immediate visual difference as narrow cobbled lanes give way to wide, tree-lined avenues, pastel-coloured low-rise apartment blocks, spacious parks and piazzas. Bolognina sprang up at the beginning of the 20th century, initially to house families of workers from the railway, then from nearby manufacturing industries. Today, the quarter is home to a diverse multi-ethnic population and remains a stronghold for militant leftwing politics, with the local community committed to avoiding gentrification. Tourists are certainly made welcome, and it is a delight to feel part of genuine local life. Where to eat and drink Trattoria di via Serra chef Tommaso Maio. Photograph: John Brunton Eating out here makes a refreshing change from the city …

‘Achtung! Staatsgrenze!” OK, the signpost marking the “state border” didn’t have exclamation marks but, with its no-nonsense Prussian font, it did feel quite shouty. The only thing was, no one on the Feistritzer Alm – a peaceful sweep of Alpine pasture at the meeting of Austria and Italy – was paying any attention to it at all. Hikers hiked straight past. Mountain bikers used it to prop up their cycles. Cows grazed willy-nilly. And the patrons of the Schutzhütte Oisternig enjoyed their cold beers regardless of which country they were in. While official boundaries may have changed in these parts over the centuries, the magnificence of the mountains has not. My husband and I had woken that morning in Austria, in the Carinthian village of Feistritz. After breakfast at the old Gasthof Alte Post, we’d bought a loaf from the bäckerei, climbed past the 15th-century church as its bells called worshippers for prayers and continued up through pine forest to these high Alpine meadows – and into Italy. We were hiking the Alpe Adria, a long-distance trail …