Lake Como Before the Season

Villa del Balbianello by private tender — and an argument for arriving on Lake Como in March, when the lake remembers itself.

There is a fortnight in late March on Lake Como, sometimes a week longer, sometimes shorter, when the lake feels almost private. The hotels have opened — most of them — but they are not yet full. The summer ferries have not yet doubled their schedule. The villa gardens, especially the great ones at the western end, are entering the brief and almost unbearable two weeks when the camellias have just opened and the wisteria is climbing toward the loggias. The lake itself is glassy, cold, and a particular dark blue we never see in the warmer months.

An Argument for the Shoulder

Como in July is a magnificent thing to behold. It is also a lake under sustained pressure, with traffic on the lakeside roads that would tax the patience of a saint and a hotel scene priced for exceptional demand. Como in March is a different lake. The roads move. The grand hotels — Villa d'Este, the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, Il Sereno, the Mandarin Oriental at Lago di Como — have rooms available with reasonable notice. The dining at Mistral or Materia or al Veluu can be confirmed two days out rather than two months. And the lake itself, crucially, is empty enough that one can take a wooden Riva at midday across to Bellagio and find the small piazza by the ferry dock essentially undisturbed.

We do not pretend that the swimming is the same. The water in March is cold, and the long lazy hours of August are a different proposition. But for the client who has come for the gardens, the architecture, and the slow looking — for the lake itself, in other words, rather than the lake as backdrop — March is the considered answer.

Villa del Balbianello, As It Should Be Seen

Of the great Como villas, the one that asks most to be visited from the water is the Villa del Balbianello. It sits on a wooded promontory at Lenno, accessed publicly only by a steep path or a public ferry, and the public visit is a perfectly fine experience. The private visit, arranged through the FAI which now owns and stewards the property, is not the same experience at all. We arrange a private tender — a wooden launch from one of the boat companies on the lake — to collect our clients from their hotel pier and to deliver them to the villa's water gate, which the public visitor cannot use.

The water gate at Balbianello is one of the most theatrical arrivals in Italian travel. A short flight of stone steps rises from the water to a loggia frescoed in pale Tiepolo blues; from the loggia, a path runs through the kitchen garden to the main villa above. The visit, conducted by a custodian in the months before the property opens fully to the public, includes the library where Guido Monzino planned his Everest expedition, the porcelain rooms, and — for those who book in advance — a glass of Franciacorta on the terrace overlooking the Tremezzina. It is a rare hour, and it is at its best in March.

The Other Villas

Como is a museum of nineteenth-century European garden-making, and the great villas can absorb a full week of visiting. We almost always include Villa Carlotta at Tremezzo, particularly in late March when the camellia collection is at peak; Villa Melzi at Bellagio, smaller and more contemporary in feel, with its lakeside chapel; and Villa Monastero in Varenna, on the eastern shore, whose long ribbon of citrus terrace is among the loveliest walks in Italy.

We pace these visits to one per day, never more. The temptation is to stack them; the result of stacking them is a kind of garden fatigue that does no justice to any of them. The right rhythm is one garden in the morning, a long lunch on the lake, a quiet afternoon at the hotel, and an early evening passeggiata along the waterfront in Bellagio or Varenna. The week assembles itself.

Where We Send Our Clients

The choice of hotel on Como is more consequential than on most Italian lakes, because the hotels themselves are part of the journey. Villa d'Este is the institutional answer, and remains, on its day, unsurpassed for a certain kind of clientele. The Grand Hotel Tremezzo offers a more contemporary luxury and a lakeside swimming platform that is among the great pleasures of the lake in any season. Il Sereno, on the eastern shore, is our recommendation for clients who want minimalist contemporary design and a smaller scale.

For the client who wants more than a hotel can offer, we curate private villas. The best of these are not on rental sites. They are family-owned properties that come to us through long-standing relationships, and they include some of the most photographed houses on the lake — taken with full domestic staff, a private chef, and, ideally, the use of a wooden boat moored at the property's pier. A week in such a villa, in late March, is among the quietest luxuries we arrange.