[EN] A Quickie in… Lago di Como

A series of posts that doesn’t fool around. It just goes straight to the point!

This lake is worth an infinite amount of quickies. It’s easily one of the most beautiful places in Italy and possibly Europe. The mountains surrounding it turn the landscape almost fiord-like. And as lame as this may sound, many (MANY) years ago I was watching America’s Next Top Model and they did a photo-shoot in a Villa in Como Lake and from that moment on I knew I had to visit that place. I did a bit of research and found Villa del Balbianello. There are many villas in Como, but this one stood out. When you scroll down you’ll get why.

If you don’t know it already, I’m a terrible driver, so when my parents set the dates to come visit me in Milan I got my puppy eyes on and argued that we should go visit this place. They were easily persuaded and on the sunniest autumn day possible we drove straight from Milan to Villa del Balbianello accompanied by my boyfriend at the time whom they had just met. What could go wrong? Actually, nothing!

From the parking lot, it’s a 20 minute walk to the Villa. I’d read online that the walk was very steep, but we found it quite easy. In the Villa (closed on Mondays and Wednesdays except on holidays) you need about three steps to fall in love. We opted to see just the gardens and we didn’t regret it. I mean… look at this:

I’m usually good with words but I think this is one of those “one picture is worth one thousand words” cases. Even one James Bond movie was shot there!

After having photographed every single inch of this place, we went back and visited the small neighbouring village of Lenno. By this time our bellies were starting to complain and we decided to find a place to pic-nic. Menaggio was the chosen one.

The afternoon plan was to see Bellagio, a town everyone told me to visit. Both from Menaggio and Cadenabbia you can take a direct ferry to reach Bellagio. As you approach you’ll start seeing the traditional Italian buildings painted in warm colours and once you get out you can explore the cobbled stone, narrow streets the town has to offer.