Three days on Lake Como: everything worth seeing faces the water, so stay on the boat

Two nights in Como itself, a full day on the ferries between Bellagio and Varenna, and a funicular up the mountain on the last morning.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Como
Places
8 across 3 days
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Lake Como is shaped like an upside-down Y, forty-six kilometres long, and over four hundred metres deep, which is deeper than the Adriatic. It sits in a trench between mountains that come down to the water almost everywhere, and that geography decides everything about a trip here.

There is no road that goes round it in any useful sense. The lakeside roads are narrow, walled and slow, the villages are strung along the shore facing the water, and the villas were all built with their front doors on a jetty because that was how people arrived. Which means the correct way to spend a day here is on the ferries, and the timetable is more important than any map.

Base yourself in Como, at the southern tip. It is a real town with a cathedral, a railway station and prices that are not resort prices, and the boats go from a quay in the middle of it.

Highlights

  • A cathedral with two pagan Roman writers standing either side of the front door
  • The garden of a Napoleonic villa running down to the water at Bellagio
  • A ruined tower above Varenna with a falconer and the whole lake below
  • A funicular from 1894 that lifts you five hundred metres in seven minutes

Where to stay

Como, two nights

A Roman town at the foot of the lake that made its money from silk and still does, quietly: most of the fabric for Italian fashion houses is woven within a few kilometres of here. It has a walled medieval centre, a cathedral, a lake promenade and a funicular, and it is about a forty minute train ride from central Milan.

It also has two useful stations, one on the fast line from Milan and one for the slower lakeside route, which makes it much easier to reach than anywhere else on the water.

Day by day

Day 1 in Como

The cathedral, the man who invented the battery, and the lakefront

Como's cathedral was begun in 1396 and finished in 1770, which is why it starts Gothic at the front and ends up with a baroque dome at the back. The famous detail is on the outside: on either side of the main door sit statues of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, both born in Como, both Romans, both entirely pagan, put up on a Christian cathedral because the city was proud of them.

Five minutes along the lake is a small neoclassical temple built in 1927 for Alessandro Volta, who was also from here and who made the first battery. Inside are his actual instruments, and the fact that the unit of electrical potential is named after a man from this town is not something Como lets you forget.

Then walk. The promenade runs west past the war memorial and out to a lakeside park around a nineteenth century villa, and it is a flat twenty minutes with the mountains opposite.

  1. 15:30

    Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

    Religious

    Gothic below, Renaissance in the middle, and an eighteenth century dome on top, hung with Renaissance tapestries. The two Roman writers flanking the door are the thing to look for before you go in.

  2. 17:00

    Tempio Voltiano

    Historic

    A small round temple on the water holding Volta's own equipment, some of it damaged in a fire in the 1890s and rebuilt. Twenty minutes, and the walk out to it is half the point.

  3. 18:15

    Villa Olmo

    Other

    An early nineteenth century villa on the shore with a formal garden in front of it and a park behind. The house hosts exhibitions; the gardens are free and open, and there is a lido next door if it is hot.

  4. 20:30

    Perch and risotto

    Eat

    Fried lake perch on saffron rice, in the walled centre rather than on the waterfront. A bottle of something white from the hills behind and it is still a cheap dinner by Italian lake standards.

With more time: The Romanesque basilica ten minutes south of the walls has five aisles, two bell towers and a fourteenth century fresco cycle behind the altar, and it is where the town was before the town was where it is now.

Day 2 in Como

Bellagio and Varenna, by ferry

Take an early boat north. The slow ferry from Como to Bellagio is not dead time: the shore slides past at walking pace, the villas come and go with their jetties and their cypresses, and you understand the lake in a way no road will show you.

Bellagio sits on the point where the two arms divide, which is why it gets the postcards and the crowds. The village itself is a set of stepped alleys full of shops, and the reason to come is the garden immediately south of it: a Napoleonic-era villa with a lawn running to the water, a Japanese pond, and a row of plane trees along the shore.

In the afternoon take the short crossing east to Varenna, which is the smaller, steeper and better village. A lakeside path on stilts runs along the rock to the harbour, there are two villa gardens next door to each other, and above the town a ruined castle with a falconry.

  1. 10:30

    Villa Melzi

    Nature

    A ten minute walk south along the shore from the ferry, and much quieter than the village behind it. The ticket covers the neoclassical chapel and a small museum as well as the garden, and the best part is simply the grass down to the water.

  2. 12:30

    Lunch above Bellagio

    Eat

    Climb one of the stepped lanes away from the waterfront before choosing. Same food, half the price, and a view down over the roofs instead of across a terrace of tour groups.

  3. 14:30

    Villa Monastero

    Religious

    A convent that became a manor house in the seventeenth century, with a two-kilometre garden strung along the shoreline under it. The house is open as a museum and the terraces are the reason to come.

  4. 16:15

    Vezio Castle

    Historic

    Twenty minutes uphill from Varenna through olive terraces to a ruined tower with the whole lake laid out from the top. There are birds of prey kept here and flown in the afternoon, and it is much less busy than anything at water level.

With more time: Menaggio, on the western shore, is the third corner of the ferry triangle and the least visited of the three, with a proper village square and the start of a mountain road up to a small lake in the hills behind. It is the stop to make if Bellagio is overwhelming.

Day 3 in Como

Up the funicular, and the last of the water

The last morning goes vertical. A funicular built in 1894 climbs from the eastern end of Como's lakefront to a village at seven hundred metres in about seven minutes, and from the top the whole southern arm of the lake is below you with the Alps behind.

From the top station a path continues uphill for half an hour to a lighthouse built for the same Volta anniversary as the temple by the water, a stone tower on the ridge that flashes green, white and red at night. On a clear day you can see Monte Rosa.

Then back down and a train to Milan, which takes about forty minutes.

  1. 09:30

    Faro Voltiano

    Architecture

    A twenty-nine metre tower on the ridge above Brunate, put up in 1927. Half an hour uphill from the funicular station on a signposted path, and the best view on the lake for the price of a cable car ticket.

  2. 12:30

    Fontana di Villa Geno

    Visit

    Back at lake level, the walk east from the ferry quay along the shore to the fountain on the far point takes about twenty minutes and is where Como goes on a Sunday.

  3. 13:30

    Last lunch, then the train

    Eat

    Something simple by the water, then ten minutes to either station. The fast trains to Milan Centrale run about every half hour.

With more time: If the weather is poor, the archaeological and picture museums in the old town are both small, cheap and half an hour each, and the silk museum on the edge of town explains the industry that paid for most of what you have been looking at.

Before you go

Where to stay

Como town, for two nights, unless money is no object. It has the trains, the ferries, restaurants at ordinary prices and something to do in the evening, and the lake villages have none of those except the ferries. Bellagio and Varenna are lovely and expensive and go very quiet after the last boat.

If you want a lake-village stay, Varenna is the practical one: it has its own railway station on the Milan line, which almost nothing else on the lake does.

The boats, which are the whole thing

Three kinds run: slow ferries that stop everywhere, hydrofoils that cost more and skip most stops, and car ferries that shuttle across the middle of the lake between Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio and Cadenabbia. The middle triangle is the busy, frequent bit, and the run down to Como is slow and scenic.

Como to Bellagio takes about two hours on the slow boat and under an hour by hydrofoil. A day ticket for the central lake pays for itself as soon as you make two hops. Check the last departure before you commit to an afternoon somewhere: the service thins out sharply in the evening and stops almost entirely in winter.

Tickets and season

Nothing needs booking except a table at a good restaurant in August. The villa gardens charge a small entry and most close from November to March, along with much of the ferry timetable and a good proportion of the hotels.

Late April to June and September are the sweet spot: the gardens are at their best, the boats are running fully, and the lake is not yet at the point where the Bellagio ferry queue takes two sailings to clear.

Eating

Lake food is freshwater fish, which people are unfairly suspicious of. Perch fillets fried in butter and sage and served on saffron rice is the local dish and it is very good. Missoltini, shad dried in the sun and pressed in salt, is the traditional one and an acquired taste.

Otherwise it is Lombard cooking: risotto, polenta, braised beef, and a lot of butter. Prices on the waterfront in the villages are what the view costs; walk one street back and up some steps and they fall by a third.

The mistake here is trying to see the lake by driving round it, and the correction costs about fifteen euros. Buy a day ticket, get on the slow boat, sit outside at the back, and let the villages come to you.

Everything on this lake was built to be seen from the water. Look at it that way.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Como, Bellagio or Varenna as a base?
Como for a short trip: it is the only one with real transport, real restaurants and normal prices, and the ferries start there. Varenna if you want a village with a station. Bellagio if the view from the balcony is the point and the budget allows.
Is Lake Como a day trip from Milan?
Como town is, easily, at forty minutes each way. The lake itself is not: getting to Bellagio and back in a day from Milan leaves you about two hours there. Two nights is the minimum that lets you use the boats properly.
Como or Garda or Maggiore?
Como for mountains, villas and drama, and the worst crowds. Garda for beaches, wind sports and family resorts, and the easiest access from Verona. Maggiore for the island gardens and a gentler, less fashionable feel. Como is the most beautiful and the least relaxing.
How bad are the crowds?
Bellagio and Varenna in July and August are genuinely uncomfortable in the middle of the day, and the ferry queues can mean waiting for the next boat. The same villages at nine in the morning or after six in the evening are close to empty, which is the argument for staying on the lake rather than visiting it.
When should I come?
Late April to June for the gardens, or September. Winter is quiet and beautiful and most of the ferry timetable, the villas and the hotels are shut, so it only works if you want the lake as scenery rather than as a destination.