Rooms That Hold the Light
On shuttered windows, lake haze, and why the best rooms in Italy are the ones that keep the afternoon out.
9 minutes
Destination No. 01
Lake Como
A lake that has been photographed for two centuries and still refuses to be hurried.
Lombardy, Italy
The Place
Como is not a place you see. It is a place you wait in, until the light changes.
The lake is at its best before nine, when the ferries are half empty and the water is a sheet of grey silk. Villas that look imperious in photographs turn quiet at that hour: shutters closed, gravel raked, gardeners moving between hydrangeas without speaking.
We come here to do very little. A boat in the morning, a long lunch on a terrace under wisteria, an afternoon reading in a room with the shutters half drawn against the heat. By six the light turns copper on the far shore, and it is entirely reasonable to stop and watch it.
Stay on the western arm if you want dinner within walking distance; stay above Bellagio if you would rather see the lake than be in it. Either way, take fewer days than you think and stay longer in each of them.
When to goLate April to early June, and the whole of October
Where to Stay
Maison Voyage recommends
Three houses we have slept in, chosen for how they hold the morning rather than for their star count.
Villa d'Este, Cernobbio
Grand in the old sense — plane trees, mosaics, a floating pool. Ask for a garden room; the palazzo is theatre, the garden is rest.
Passalacqua, Moltrasio
A house rather than a hotel. Twenty-four rooms, terraced gardens, and the pleasant fiction that you have been lent someone's family villa.
Il Sereno, Torno
The modern counterpoint: Patricia Urquiola interiors, stone and walnut, and rooms that put the lake exactly where it belongs — in the window.
Where to Eat
Tables worth the afternoon
Not the most decorated rooms — the ones we would go back to on the last night.
Trattoria del Glicine, Bellagio
Under the wisteria, at the second sitting. Order the missoltini if it is the season, and the lake perch if it is not.
Locanda La Tirlindana, Sala Comacina
A small square, a long table by the water, risotto that takes twenty-five minutes and is worth every one of them.
Materia, Cernobbio
The one dinner worth dressing for. Precise, quiet, and never showy about how good it is.
What to Do
Experiences, unhurried
Each of these takes half a day at most, and none of them should be combined with another.
A wooden boat at seven
A classic Riva or a simple lucia, one hour, no destination. The villages look entirely different from the water at that hour.
The Greenway del Lago
Ten kilometres of old lanes between Colonno and Cadenabbia — walled gardens, chapels, and almost nobody.
Villa del Balbianello, late afternoon
Go at closing time, when the tour boats have gone and the loggia belongs to whoever is still standing in it.
Gallery
Lake Como, in two frames
From the Journal
Longer reading on Lake Como
The Slow Ferry
An argument for the public boat over the private one: forty minutes, a bench, and the whole lake going past.
6 minutes
Travel Tips
Quiet, practical advice
The three things we wish someone had told us before the first visit.
Arrive by train
Milan Centrale to Varenna takes an hour and delivers you to the water. The road along the lake is beautiful and very slow.
Book dinner before you book the boat
Good tables on the lake are held weeks ahead in season; the boats can be arranged the same morning.
Leave August alone
The lake is at its most crowded and least itself. October gives you the same light with half the noise.
An Invitation
Continue the Journey
One letter each month: a place worth the detour, an object worth keeping, a page worth reading slowly. Nothing more.