Wintering in Lake Como Reveals Italy's Greatest Lake at Its Best

23.01.2025 - 21:11 / cntraveler.com / Lake Como / lord Byron / George Clooney

It’s a cloudless December day on Lake Como, the kind that would make anyone want to stay in bed and stock the pantry. Ever since we overtook Lord Byron—the unromantic hydrofoil ferry, not the Romantic poet—the only fast-moving object that skipper Giorgio Cantaluppi and I have spotted is a cormorant, cresting the ripples in the direction of George Clooney’s villa, wingtips skimming the water.

Villa d’Este

When we stop by the ridiculously picturesque bridge and waterfall of Nesso—where, in summer, a flotilla of tourist boats face off against an army of selfie sticks—we are still gloriously alone. The waterfall is sublime, but so is the sun warming my back as I turn to the north. Somewhere over there, beyond those snow-dusted peaks on the border between Italy and Switzerland, people are skiing. Me, I’m wondering if the hotel pool is still open.

View from the walk to Crotto Piazzaga

When Mediterranean resorts such as Cannes or San Remo began to attract visitors from colder climes in the second half of the 19th century, they were winter destinations. Not so Lake Como. The great villas that were built around its shores from the 16th century onwards were intimately connected with the summer ritual known as la villeggiatura. Like the Palladian villas of Veneto, they were places that urban aristocrats would decamp to, generally around mid-June, with a platoon of servants, lapdogs, and candelabras in tow.

Painter in the backstreets of Bellagio

The villeggiatura season somehow became hard-wired into the Lake Como mindset. When smart hotels began offering an alternative to owning a grand private villa (and some, such as Villa d’Este, Passalacqua, and the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, were once grand private villas), most chose to open from Easter through to the end of October, but two-thirds of foreign visitors to the lake still arrive in the four months between June and September.

Aquila d’Oro

Recently, however, a breeze of change has been wafting across the Lago di Como—especially across the lower left arm of its inverted Y. Known as the ramo di Como, or Como branch, this is classic Como, Clooney Como, villeggiatura Como, home to most of the lake’s historical villas and gardens, and the near totality of Lake Como's high-end hotels. There are various reasons for this, but the one that leaves all the others trailing far behind is its sheer beauty. This is where the mountains come down to the water in folds like the drapery trailing behind a Botticelli angel. It’s where the lake can feel like a gorge one moment and a sea the next—as it does through the squeeze between Laglio and Careno, where there’s a wide bay dominated to the south by the great pale yellow façade of one of Como’s greatest houses, the