While researching various places in Stresa I often come across old photographs of the city. The last few inspired me to write a short story, that I called 'Il fiume Cree,' The River Cree. You can read it here, at Ritratti Italiani, where I keep some of the little bilingual short stories I write.

Stresa, although 1000 years old, is not your traditional 'timeless' Italian town. Things here are constantly updated and renovated for the multitudes of tourists who come to visit, and so there are few indications of how life was here long ago.

Maybe that's why the old photographs fascinate me so, a little glimpse backwards in time...

This photograph from the mid-1800s captures a moment of everyday life, women meeting and washing linens in the water of the little River Cree, although there doesn't seem to be very much water in this photo. Only a couple of streets away from this scene, Stresa was already a tourist destination for the wealthy, the famous, royalty and politicans.

The River Cree was covered over beginning in 1910. A railroad was constructed to travel the length of the street to bring tourists from the lake to the summit of Mt. Mottarone. However, the railroad is also gone now. Where the Cree ran is now called via Roma, and at the end of via Roma is Piazza Cadorna, where every nice day chairs and tables are set up. The River Cree still flows though, just hidden underneath the feet of the people sitting there.