In a letter to his parents in 1918, Ernest Hemingway wrote "I'm up here in Stresa, a little resort on Lake Maggiore. One of the most beautiful Italian lakes."

Hemingway visited Stresa a few months after his war injury (young Hemingway was an ambulance driver on the Italian side of the battlefield). During his visit he stayed at Grand Hotel Des Iles Borromees, room 106  which is now known as the Hemingway Suite. Rumor has it that most of the time he spent playing pool in the hotel bar and talking with the barman over a dry martini, his favorite drink at the time.

Unfortunately, that very bar has been closed but the good news is that the new bar has not forgotten the famous guest. There is a Hemingway Special cocktail in the drinks menu, photos of Hemingway on the walls and a framed page of the guest book he signed on a return visit in 1948 that reads: "Ernest Hemingway (an old client)".

Hemingway described the place in the voice of Frederic Henry, the protagonist of “A Farewell to Arms”: “The hotel was very luxurious. I went down the long halls, down the wide stairs, through the rooms to the bar. I knew the barman and sat on a high stool and ate salted almonds and potato chips. The martini felt cool and clean.”