The Polvese Island is located in the town of Castiglione del Lago and is the largest of the three islands of Trasimeno with its 69.60 acres; it offers wide open spaces, free beaches for bathing, playgrounds, historic and nature trails where time seems to stand still. Guests can enjoy the various routes on the island, from the historical to natural one, surrounded by greenery that coasts the lake with unique landscapes, where to meet and observe the many animals that live freely on the island and in the lake as coots, mallards, grebes, herons, pheasants, rabbits and peacocks. Guests can also enjoy the free equipped beaches, playgrounds, tables under the trees and and wide open spaces to play and relax away from the chaos, crowds and cars.
The Medieval Fortress
Probably the first complex of the castle of the Polvese island was only the tower dating from the twelfth century. So do not imagine this castle as a magnificent residence of a few lord but instead as a structure placed to defend the Polvese village and as a refuge in case of need for its inhabitants.
Monastery of San Secondo
The presence of the Olivetans monks on the Polvese Island is certified to 1482, so that the construction of their Monastery of San Secondo is to be traced back to that date. Almost certainly in the place where the monastery was built there were already other settlement structures before; however, the structure of the monastery in the form that we can still admire today, must certainly be the work of the Olivetans monks.
The Garden of the Aquatic Plants
It was built in 1995 thanks to the architectural and functional recovery, cared by the Province of Perugia, of a unique swimming pool designed in 1959 by Peter Porcinai, one of the greatest Italian architects of the landscape. Mr. Porcinai devised a swimming pool (maximum depth 5.30 mt.) built into the rock and fed by the waters of Trasimeno Lake which, subject to special filtering techniques, achieve a high degree of transparency.
The Natural Oasis
The Polvese island has three main environments: 1) the wetland, 2) the forest, 3) the crops. The wetland consists by a band of hydrophytes which surround the island in a discontinuous way. The forest covers an area on the northern side of the island corresponding to about the 25% of the entire surface. The central part of about 11 acres is mainly composed of holm oak: the holm oak forest of St. Leonard so called from the homonym church that once stood in this area.