The Morning the Lake Disappeared: Three Days on Lake Como
The lake vanished on my second morning.
I'd woken up in a room above a trattoria in Varenna — a narrow building painted the color of a fading peach, with shutters that stuck and a balcony barely wide enough for one person standing sideways. The night before, the view had been the full operatic spread: mountains, water, the distant lights of Bellagio twinkling across the fork where Lake Como's three branches meet.
Now: white. A wall of fog so thick it swallowed the lake, the mountains, and the church bell tower 50 meters away. I could hear water lapping against stone somewhere below, but I couldn't see it.
Day One: Varenna and the Art of Arriving Slowly
I'd taken the train from Milan Centrale — one hour, 8 EUR, no reservation needed. The Trenitalia commuter train is unglamorous: scratched windows, vinyl seats, a recorded announcement that cuts out halfway through "Varenna-Esino-Perledo."
But then the train rounds the last bend above the lake and suddenly you understand why George Clooney bought a house here. The water is flat and blue-grey. Mountains rise directly from the shore. Pastel villages cling to the slopes at angles that shouldn't work.
I checked into my room (110 EUR/night — not cheap, but Bellagio averages 250 EUR for comparable) and immediately walked the Passeggiata degli Innamorati. The "Lovers' Walk" is a paved lakeside path that runs along the water from the ferry dock toward Villa Monastero. It's maybe 400 meters long. It took me 45 minutes because I kept stopping to stare.
Villa Monastero's botanical gardens (10 EUR, open March-October) stretch along the shore in a procession of Mediterranean plants, terraces, and sculptures. The ticket office woman told me, in a tone suggesting she'd given this advice ten thousand times, to walk all the way to the end and come back. She was right. The return view — looking back toward Varenna with Bellagio behind it — is the one you want.
Dinner was at a trattoria one street back from the waterfront. The menu was a single laminated page. Risotto alla milanese, tagliata di manzo, a carafe of house red. 38 EUR total. The owner's dog slept under the next table for the entire meal.
Day Two: The Fog, the Ferry, and Bellagio
So the fog. I went down to the ferry dock at 9AM to catch the boat to Bellagio and found three other confused tourists peering into whiteness. The Navigazione Laghi ferry runs regardless of visibility — the captains on this lake have been navigating fog since before GPS existed.
The crossing took 15 minutes (5 EUR). We emerged from the fog about halfway across, and Bellagio appeared like a stage set being revealed — terracotta rooftops, church spires, and the grand facade of the Hotel Metropole materializing from grey to color.
Bellagio earns its nickname as the "Pearl of Lake Como." The steep cobblestone lanes of Salita Serbelloni are lined with silk shops (Como is historically Italy's silk capital), ceramic stores, and gelateria. Villa Serbelloni offers guided tours of its gardens (10 EUR, at 11AM and 3:30PM, April-October) with views that justify every superlative you've ever read.
But here's my honest take: Bellagio by noon becomes a procession of day-trippers. The tour groups arrive, the waterfront restaurants double as queuing areas, and the charm gets stretched thin. Visit in the morning. Or stay overnight, when the day crowd leaves and the village becomes quiet and slightly mysterious — streetlights reflecting in wet cobblestones, restaurants half-full, a cat asleep on a wall.
I ate lunch at a place half a block uphill from the main square. Pasta with lake fish (lavarello, a local whitefish) that was delicate and buttery. 14 EUR for the primo. I asked the waiter about the waterfront restaurants below, and he gave me a look that communicated everything without words.
Day Three: Villa Balbianello and the Greenway
The fog had burned off. The lake was a mirror.
I caught the ferry to Lenno (day pass: about 15 EUR for the central zone — excellent value for unlimited rides) and walked to Villa del Balbianello. This 18th-century villa on a wooded promontory is where they filmed the Naboo lake scenes in Star Wars: Episode II and the recovery scene in Casino Royale.
The villa itself (20 EUR for gardens and interior, 10 EUR gardens only) is beautiful but small — it's the setting that overwhelms. The promontory juts into the lake like the prow of a stone ship, with views in three directions. Wisteria and roses climb the loggia walls. The silence is total except for boat engines on the water.
After Balbianello, I walked part of the Greenway del Lago — a 10-km trail along the western shore from Colonno to Cadenabbia. I did the section from Lenno to Sala Comacina, passing through olive groves and tiny hamlets where the only sounds were roosters and distant church bells. Nobody else on the trail. Not one person.
The walk took about 90 minutes. I caught a ferry back from Sala Comacina, stood on the upper deck as the boat cut through water so still it reflected the mountains perfectly — an inverted world, complete and unbroken.
The Funicular, Then Gone
I'd left Como town for last, which was almost a mistake. The lakefront promenade is lovely. The Gothic-Renaissance cathedral (free entry) has a quiet grandeur. But the real reason to come is the Brunate funicular — 7 EUR return, 7 minutes, departing every 15-30 minutes — which climbs to 715 meters above the lake.
The view from Brunate is the one that stays with you. You can see the entire southern branch of the lake, the city of Como foreshortened below, and on clear days, the Alps stretching across the northern horizon. I watched a paraglider launch from the hillside and drift silently over the lake, and for about 30 seconds I considered signing up.
I didn't. I caught the train back to Milan instead. The compartment was full of commuters heading home from work, headphones in, staring at phones. They didn't look out the window when the lake appeared. They see it every day.
For a different Italian lakeside experience, Florence is just a few hours south with its own Renaissance magnificence, while the Amalfi Coast offers dramatic coastal scenery of a completely different character.
