Lake Mergozzo in Piedmont is so little known that even Piemontesi would be hard pushed to pinpoint it on a map – let alone Italians from other regions. Measuring only about a mile-and-a-half in length, this deep blue sliver of water was once the westernmost part of Lake Maggiore, Italy’s second largest lake.

Then, between five and six centuries ago, flooding of the nearby River Toce ­created a strip of land. When the water subsided, the land came to divide the two, creating what is today Lake Mergozzo. These days, it is connected to Lake Maggiore by a marshy one-and-three-quarter-mile-canal.