Lake Como

Where it sits. Lake Como lies about 50 kilometres north of Milan, in the Lombard pre-Alps, and it is shaped like an inverted Y. The southern legs run to the cities of Como and Lecco; the single northern arm reaches Colico and the mouth of the Adda, which both feeds and drains the lake. At the fork stands Bellagio, on a promontory that is the most photographed point on the lake. The water covers roughly 146 square kilometres, which makes it the third-largest Italian lake, but its defining statistic is depth: over 400 metres at its deepest, one of the deepest lakes in Europe, its bed sunk well below sea level. That trench was gouged by a glacier and the sides were never widened, so mountains rise almost vertically from the shoreline, several above 2,000 metres, and the villages cling to whatever narrow shelf they can find.

The story behind it. Como was Roman Comum, refounded by Julius Caesar; both Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger came from here, and the younger Pliny described his lakeside villas in letters that read like the first property brochure in European literature. The taste for villa life never went away. From the seventeenth century onward Milanese and Lombard aristocrats built along the shore, and by the nineteenth century the lake was a fixed stop on the Romantic tour, drawing Shelley, Byron, Liszt and Verdi. Villa Carlotta at Tremezzo dates from the end of the seventeenth century and holds Canova sculpture and terraced azalea gardens; Villa Melzi at Bellagio is neoclassical, from 1808; Villa Serbelloni crowns the Bellagio headland; Villa d'Este at Cernobbio, built in 1568 for a cardinal, has been a hotel since 1873. The city of Como itself built its wealth on silk, and still supplies a large share of Europe's woven silk.

On screen. Lake Como closes Casino Royale (2006), and it carries two distinct Bond locations. Bond recuperates from his torture at a private clinic filmed at Villa del Balbianello, on the wooded promontory at Lenno; the loggia scenes with Vesper Lynd, including the wheelchair and the terrace overlooking the water, were shot on its stone belvedere. The film's final scene, in which Bond shoots Mr White in the leg and delivers the line the whole picture has been withholding, was filmed at Villa Gaeta, a lavish 1920s house at San Siro on the western shore north of Menaggio. Both are on the same stretch of the Tremezzina and Centro Lago, a few kilometres apart by boat. The lake had already served Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2002) for the Naboo lakeside retreat, again at Balbianello, and Ocean's Twelve (2004) used the shoreline villas as well.

What you actually see today. The lake works best as a set of short water hops rather than a drive. Navigazione Lago di Como runs slow boats, fast hydrofoils and car ferries; the car ferry triangle links Varenna, Bellagio and Cadenabbia, and it is the only way to cross the middle of the lake without a long detour. Varenna is the tightest and prettiest of the eastern villages, with the lakeside Passeggiata degli Innamorati and the ruined Castello di Vezio above it. Bellagio's stepped lanes climb between the two harbours. Menaggio is the practical base on the west side, with the Sanagra valley and the Val Menaggio route towards Lake Lugano behind it. Above Como, the Brunate funicular has run since 1894 and lifts you 500 metres in seven minutes to a ridge with the whole southern basin below. Como city rewards a slow morning on foot: the Duomo took from 1396 to 1770 to finish and mixes Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque in one facade, and a few streets away sits the Casa del Fascio of 1932 to 1936, Giuseppe Terragni's rationalist office block and one of the most studied modernist buildings in Italy. North of the city the Greenway del Lago di Como links Colonno to Griante over about ten kilometres of old mule tracks, lakeside lanes and villa gates, which is the simplest way to see this shore without a car.

Getting there and timing. Trains from Milano Centrale reach Varenna-Esino in about an hour, and Milano Cadorna reaches Como Nord Lago in a similar time, arriving a hundred metres from the boat pier. Malpensa and Bergamo airports are both within roughly ninety minutes. Late April to June is the best combination of gardens in flower and moderate crowds; September brings warm water and thinner traffic. July and August fill the ferries and the single lakeside roads, which are narrow, walled and slow. Many villa gardens, including Balbianello and Carlotta, shut from November to March, and the lake weather turns grey and drizzly through the winter. Two local winds set the rhythm: the Breva blows up-lake in the afternoon, the Tivano down-lake in the early morning.