Islands in the Stream and Others

I have never understood the mystique of being stranded on a desert isle, even with a passel of books and a dining table to which I could invite any dozen guests, including Winston Churchill.

As the setting for my fantasies, I prefer an island with shade trees and a waterfall that splashes potable water.

I also like islands where there are people--a few, not too many. It is nice if one of them can play the mandolin, and another can bake bread.

I treasure city islands and islands lashed with history. I like islands in rivers, such as the Ile d’Orleans in the St. Lawrence near Quebec and the Ile St. Louis in mid-Seine in mid-Paris. Both offer a slower pace--and fine country cooking--within urban realism.

I like islands steeped in walls and mythology, and islands wreathed with flowers. I like sandy coves that are speckled each dawn with a fresh array of shells. I like islands of mountains, of pines and of character.

If I were to string together an archipelago of favorites, I could not leave out Burano. This proud island in the Venetian lagoon is like a stage set for not-so-grand opera. Houses are painted in gaudy tones: bright blue with red doors, ripe peach with green shutters.

Fishermen swap tales as they mend their nets at the water’s edge. Older women make lace, which was big on Burano in the 16th Century. Lacemaking still is taught in schools.

Signs of that tradition peek out. As I strolled the flagstone lanes of this car-free island, I came upon a winsome child about 3 years old. She wore a bonnet trimmed in lace and ducked her head when I waved.

“ Timida ,” her mother said with a laugh.

As I turned a corner, a gray-haired woman in a plain black dress and apron stepped from a doorway. When she bent to turn the key, I saw two inches of heavy lace sewn at the bottom of her petticoat.

Burano has a bell tower that leans, though not as dramatically as the one in Pisa. Few tourists come to see it, and those who do are politely ignored by the close-knit natives. The mood is a far cry from the glassware hucksters of nearby Murano.

On the other side of Italy, in Lake Maggiore near Stresa, is one of the stranger groups: the Borromean islands. On the day I was to fly home from Milan, I arose at dawn to catch the first boat to Isola Bella. My guide had said: “No tourist traveling in these parts should pass them by without breathing their intoxicating perfume.”

The setting is wondrous: jade green mounds afloat in a sapphire lake, with a wall of the Alps behind. In the 1600s, a princely family named Borromeo began to shape these islands into parks and gardens. There are palaces and terraces lined with cypress and laurel.

At the top of Isola Bella is a marble unicorn, the Borromeo family crest. There are also extensive gardens on Isola Madre, where peacocks promenade and a wisteria spreads for more than 80 yards.

Or so I am told. I arrived too early in the day . . . or too early in the season. Palaces were shuttered. Garden gates were locked. The esplanade on Isola dei Pescatori was lined with empty cafe tales and chairs. I wandered the island’s stone alleys in the company of a sleek black cat and two of its golden friends. I could not find coffee; they could not find cream.

Do I regret the journey? Of course not. The approach to an island is often as magical as being there.

In the Aegean, I favor the great whitewashed ways of Mykonos, where giant windmills creak above the sea and square houses glisten like sugar cubes. I like to call on Hvar and Mljet off the Dalmatian coast of Yugoslavia, where there are islands within islands.

In Australia, I would go back to tropical Dunk Island, home of the blue Ulysses butterfly, and a jumping-off point for a trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

In New Zealand, I would go to the South Island and stay at Milford Sound or just about any place along the wild west coast.

My string of dream islands would have to include Sjaelland, or how else could I have Copenhagen? It would include the Big Island of Hawaii so that I could keep an eye on the running story at Kilauea volcano.

Among the British Virgins in the Caribbean, I would need Mosquito Island off Virgin Gorda, as well as the Norman Island Bight. Both have elegant reefs just a few laps from a sailboat.

If I were to be marooned on an island, I could imagine no better place than Moorea, where, in fact, I was once stranded by a sudden South Pacific storm called a vero.

The wind screamed as coconuts pounded onto thatched huts, and the full moon turned chartreuse. Our boat to Tahiti was canceled.

It was a frothy scene that called for romance and laughter, not a worldly summit. My fantasies ran toward Alan Alda rather than Winston Churchill.