When place becomes part of a family’s identity...
There are some places that seem almost designed for a family reunion. This summer, ours was Lake Orta, Italy—a small, impossibly beautiful lake tucked into the foothills of the Alps in northern Piedmont.
If Lake Como is the famous Italian lake everyone knows, Lake Orta is its quieter cousin. There are fewer tour buses, fewer crowds and very little of the see-and-be-seen atmosphere. Instead, there are little stone villages, mountains dropping toward the water, boats crossing the lake, long dinners outside and the feeling that you've stumbled onto a part of Italy that somehow hasn't been discovered yet.
For the Wolfskehl family, it became our home for a week.
Making a Family Reunion Our Own
Of course, being in the business of bringing maps and things together, I couldn't resist making a few things specifically for the trip.
We created Lake Orta map towels featuring the lake and surrounding towns, along with Von Wolfskehl family crest tote bags and shirts for everyone. What started as a little bit of family-reunion fun quickly became something more.
Suddenly the towels were hanging over chairs and balconies after swimming in the lake. The tote bags were coming along on trips into town. Everyone was walking around in their Wolfskehl shirts.
They became part of the visual memory of the week.
The Magic of a Place
That's one of the things I've always loved about maps.
A map isn't really about roads, shorelines or geography. It's about where something happened.
It's the lake where everyone went swimming. The village where you had dinner. The dock where the kids jumped into the water. The house where everyone gathered in the morning. The place where three generations of a family somehow managed to be together at the same time.
Long after the trip is over, seeing that shape on a towel or tote bag brings you right back.
And Lake Orta gave us plenty to remember: mornings looking across the water toward the mountains, wandering through Orta San Giulio, taking the boat out to Isola San Giulio, eating far too much Italian food, the "Cascata" (pic below!) and simply having the rare luxury of nowhere else we needed to be.
Hostess with the mimosas
And, of course, you can't arrive for a week in Italy empty-handed. For our wonderful hosts, Tony and Angelica, we brought a couple of gifts that felt especially fitting: the Lake Orta Map Towel for Brad and one of our Vintage Italy Map Scarves for Anna. A map of the lake we were about to spend the week enjoying, and a vintage map of the country that brought us all together. It was a small way to say thank you—and a reminder that sometimes the best gifts aren't just about a place, but about the memories you make there.
A Souvenir That's Actually Yours
Maybe that's why the best souvenirs aren't always the things you buy in a gift shop.
Sometimes they're the things that could only belong to your family, your trip and your place.
Our Lake Orta towels aren't just Lake Orta towels anymore. They're those towels from the Wolfskehl reunion in Italy.
And every time one comes out of the closet, that's exactly where it takes us.
That's the magic of a map. It doesn't just show you where you are. Sometimes it reminds you where you've been.
