Varenna

Where it sits. Varenna occupies a shelf of rock on the eastern shore of Lake Como, at the exact point where the lake splits into its Como and Lecco branches. The village has perhaps 750 residents and no room to grow: the Grigne massif rises straight out of the water behind it, so the houses are stacked in tiers up a slope threaded by stepped alleys, and the shoreline is held on stone arches. Directly opposite, across roughly two kilometres of water, sits the Bellagio promontory; Menaggio faces it on the western shore. That triangle of three towns and the ferries that link them is the classic centre of the lake, and Varenna is its eastern corner — the shaded morning side, catching full sun only in the afternoon.

The story behind it. Local tradition dates the settlement to fishermen displaced from the island of Comacina after Como's forces destroyed it in 1169, and Varenna's medieval history is a long rivalry with Bellagio over lake traffic. The village lived on fishing, olives and the quarrying of marmo nero di Varenna, a dense black limestone shot with white veining that was shipped out for church floors and altars across Lombardy — the quarries above the village are worked out but visible. The Church of San Giorgio on the main square dates to the fourteenth century and holds frescoes of its patron; the smaller San Giovanni Battista beside it is older still, with fragments of eleventh-century wall painting. Above the roofs stands the Castello di Vezio, a fortified lookout associated in legend with the Lombard queen Theodelinda, now a small museum with a falconry display and a view straight down the fork of the lake.

Water, and a very short river. Just south of the centre, the Fiumelatte emerges from a cave in the mountainside and runs about 250 metres to the lake, making it one of the shortest rivers in Italy. It flows only from roughly March to October, drying completely in winter, and it churns white over its bed — hence the name, "milk river". Leonardo da Vinci noted it in the Codex Atlanticus and wondered where the water came from; the answer, an underground karst system inside the Grigne, was only established in the twentieth century. The walk up to the source takes about twenty minutes from the shore.

On screen. Varenna itself is more often the backdrop than the subject, and the distinction matters for anyone tracing film locations on this lake. The Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones unit worked at Villa del Balbianello on the western shore, which became the Naboo retreat of Varykino; Casino Royale used the same villa plus Villa La Gaeta further north; Ocean's Twelve shot at Villa Erba near Cernobbio. Varenna's role in all of them is the eastern skyline — the tiered village and the Grigne behind it that appear in wide shots across the water. The village's own screen presence is largely Italian television and commercials, which use the Passeggiata degli Innamorati, a walkway cantilevered over the lake between the ferry pier and the centre, as a ready-made romantic set.

What you actually see today. The village is walkable end to end in twenty minutes and effectively car-free in its core. From the ferry pier the lakeside walkway leads past pastel houses with arcaded ground floors to Piazza San Giorgio, the one flat open space, lined with cafés serving lake fish — perch with rice, missoltini of dried shad — and Valtellina wines. Two villas open their gardens at the southern end: Villa Monastero, with its two-kilometre botanical terrace and its Fermi lecture hall, and Villa Cipressi, now a hotel whose terraced garden is open to visitors. The stepped alleys, called contrade, climb from the shore to the upper village and on toward Vezio. Almost every route involves stairs, which is the practical limit on accessibility here.

Getting there and timing. Varenna is the only mid-lake town with its own mainline station: regional trains from Milano Centrale reach Varenna-Esino in about an hour, and the pier is a ten-minute downhill walk. Car ferries and passenger boats cross to Bellagio and Menaggio roughly every half hour, with reduced winter service. Traffic on the SS36 lakeshore road is heavy in summer and parking is minimal, so the train is the sane approach. Late spring and September are the best weeks; the light turns on Varenna from mid-afternoon, and sunset from the Passeggiata looks straight down the western arm of the lake.