LAKE COMO
On Lake Como, a boat trip is certainly the best way to admire the landscape from a privileged point of view.
A unique experience to get to know the beauties of the lake, from the first basin, overlooked by the city of Como, to the northern end and the branch of Lecco.
“There is no doubt that this is the most intoxicating scenery I have seen so far. The other evening the scenery was extraordinary and picturesque.
On the opposite shore the cliffs and trees were reflected in the lake
with marvelous clarity and from many distant windows rays of light stretched over the still waters.”
Mark Twain, The innocents abroad, 1869.
Lake Como is world famous for its luxurious villas and wonderful gardens.
In Tremezzo, the neoclassical Villa Carlotta offers springtime visitors a triumph of rhododendrons and azaleas while at Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, the pearl of the lake, you can breathe history and culture of the past, when Leonardo da Vinci, the poet Giuseppe Parini and Queen Victoria stayed in its rooms. The Gardens of Villa Melzi are added to the must-see of the lake in the summer season.
Villa Balbianello, on the Lenno promontory, Property of the FAI, has a garden and a loggia from which you can enjoy a breathtaking spectacle. In front of Ossuccio there is the only island of the Lario, the Comacina Island, with its ancient traditions and flavors of a distant time, the Romanesque church of Santa Maria Maddalena with a Gothic bell tower and artists’ houses, in a rationalist style. Don’t miss the Sacro Monte di Ossuccio included by UNESCO in the list of World Heritage Sites.
“That branch of Lake Como, which turns towards noon, between two uninterrupted mountain ranges, all in between breasts and in gulfs, depending on the protrusion and return of those, almost suddenly shrinks, and takes the course and figure of a river, between a promontory on the right, and a broad coastline on the other side; and the bridge, which joins the two banks, seems to make this transformation even more sensitive to the eye, and marks the point where the lake ceases, and the Adda begins again, to then take back the name of lake where the shores, that by moving away again, let the water relax and slow down into new gulfs and new breasts.”
Alessandro Manzoni, The Betrothed, 1825.
