Stresa is a comune (municipality) of about 4,600 residents on the shores of Lake Maggiore in the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, in the Italian region of Piedmont.

[3] In 1014 Stresa was donated by Emperor Henry II to the female Benedictine monastery of San Felice of Pavia.

In 1948 American author and journalist Ernest Hemingway visited the town; he had set part of his 1929 novel Farewell to Arms in the Grand Hotel des Îles Borromées.

Stresa hosted a number of political conferences in the 20th century, including in: EuroCity train services connect south to Milan and north to Bern and Basel.

Until its May 2021 deadly disaster[5][6] the Stresa-Alpino-Mottarone Cable Car offered a 20-minute ride to the summit of Monte Mottarone, with the Giardino Botanico Alpinia en route.