Can we arrive by train rather than flying to Milan?

Absolutely — Varenna has a small railway station on the Milan–Lugano line, and the train from Milan Centrale takes fifty minutes. We arrange the transfer from the station to the hotel by private boat or car.

How is pricing structured?

Bespoke itineraries are priced individually based on travel dates, group size, and accommodation choices. Complete the planning form and a specialist responds within one business day.

7-Day Bespoke Journey

The Italian Lakes: Villa Life

Como and Maggiore — the grand hotel tradition and the villa gardens of the Alps.

Available as Private Semi-Private Self-Guided

From €3,290 per person 7 days / 6 nights

View Itinerary

Tour Overview

7 days across Italy.

The Italian Lakes have been one of Europe's great retreats since the Roman Empire — Pliny the Younger had two villas on Lake Como, Napoleon retreated here after Waterloo, and Verdi spent the last decades of his life on the shore of Lake Maggiore. The appeal has never diminished: the particular combination of Alps above, temperate lake below, and the Italian talent for the decorative that produced a century of villa gardens unlike anything available in a purely alpine or a purely coastal setting. This seven-day private journey moves through Lake Como's most extraordinary villages and villa gardens, crosses to Lake Maggiore and its Borromean Islands, and returns to Milan through the Piedmontese hills. It is designed for travellers who understand that the purpose of a great lakeside hotel is to do nothing particularly well.

Detailed Itinerary

Your journey, day by day.

Every day is designed with breathing room. Sleep in, take a detour, linger at lunch — the itinerary flexes around you, not the other way around.

Day 1

Milan & the Journey North

The Alps begin to show themselves above the city.

Your driver meets you at Milan Malpensa and carries you north toward the lake district — the road from Milan to Como takes less than an hour, and the moment the landscape lifts from the Lombard plain into the lake district's particular combination of mountains and water is immediately apparent. You arrive at Varenna on the eastern shore of Como in time for the late afternoon: a small village built on a promontory above the lake, its narrow streets climbing from the lakefront piazza in a way that has not changed since the 19th century. Your hotel is a historic lakeside villa converted — a terrace above the water, the western shore visible across the lake, and in the distance on clear days the snow on the Alps above Lugano. Dinner in Varenna at a restaurant that has been serving local perch and misultin (sun-dried lake fish) from the same kitchen since the 1920s.

Private transfer from Milan Malpensa to Lake Como
Varenna village — a lakeside promontory unchanged for centuries
Lake Como first view from a historic villa terrace
Lakeside dinner — local perch and misultin

5★ grand hotel, Varenna, Lake Como

Day 2

Villa del Balbianello

The most theatrical villa garden in Italy.

Villa del Balbianello sits on a wooded promontory at the southern end of Lake Como that seems almost impossibly positioned — terraced gardens falling to the water on three sides, with loggia and belvedere looking across the lake to the Alps. It was built in 1787 by Cardinal Durini, bought in the 19th century by a British explorer named Butler who added the loggia, and left in the last century to the Fondo Ambiente Italiano by an industrialist who also used it as a film set — Casino Royale's opening sequences were shot here. A private boat from Varenna arrives at the villa's stone jetty after the day visitors have gone. Your guide takes you through the gardens at leisure: the azalea hedges, the wisteria on the loggia, the view from the terrace where Bond stood in his first appearance. An afternoon at leisure in Varenna or a private boat to the village of Tremezzina for a gelato and a walk along the lakefront promenade.

Villa del Balbianello by private boat — loggia and garden at leisure
Casino Royale's filming location — the terrace over the lake
Cardinal Durini's 1787 villa gardens
Private boat between lake villages

Meals: Breakfast 5★ grand hotel, Varenna or Bellagio, Lake Como

Day 3

Bellagio & Villa Carlotta

The 'Pearl of the Lake' and the garden of azaleas.

Bellagio occupies the narrow headland at the point where Lake Como splits into its two southern arms — the view from the headland gardens north toward the Alps and south toward both branches simultaneously is the one image that defines Como in the European imagination. Your morning begins at Villa Carlotta, on the western shore: a neoclassical villa built in 1690 whose grounds contain one of the greatest garden collections of azaleas and rhododendrons in Europe, reaching peak flowering in April and May. The inside of the villa holds Thorvaldsen's Amor and Psyche frieze — the marble relief commissioned by the king of Bavaria as a wedding gift — and Canova's Palamedes. Lunch in a restaurant on the Bellagio headland with a table looking both ways up the lake. The afternoon is for Bellagio itself: the silk shops that have operated here since the 18th century, the stepped streets called contrade, and the hydraulic lakefront promenades where the boat services connect this peninsula to the rest of the lake.

Villa Carlotta — azalea gardens and Thorvaldsen's Amor and Psyche
Bellagio headland panorama — both Como arms and the Alps
18th-century silk shops and the contrade streets
Lakefront lunch above the water

Meals: Breakfast 5★ grand hotel, Bellagio

Day 4

Across the Lake: Menaggio & the Hills

The Lario villages that the day-trippers never reach.

Lake Como's western shore is lined with villages that the tour buses pass without stopping — Menaggio, Griante, Cadenabbia — and the hills behind them hold the walking paths and lookout points that give the lake its true scale. A private boat from Bellagio crosses to Menaggio in fifteen minutes. The morning walk climbs through olive terraces and chestnut woods to a belvedere 400 metres above the lake: the view encompasses the entire upper lake basin, the Swiss border mountains, and on clear days the outline of Monte Rosa on the horizon. Lunch at a hilltop restaurant with a terrace above the valley. In the afternoon, the drive north along the western shore to Dongo, where in 1945 Mussolini was captured attempting to flee into Switzerland in a German convoy, and then the tunnel through the mountain to the Valtellina for a wine tasting: the Nebbiolo of the Valtellina is grown on impossibly steep south-facing terraces above the valley floor and produces wines of considerable character that almost nobody outside northern Italy drinks.

Private boat from Bellagio to Menaggio
Morning walk to the 400-metre belvedere
Valtellina Nebbiolo wine tasting on the mountainside
Transfer to Lake Maggiore

Meals: Breakfast 5★ grand hotel, Stresa, Lake Maggiore

Day 5

Isola Bella & the Borromean Islands

A Baroque palace growing out of a lake island.

The Borromeo family began building Isola Bella in 1632 and did not stop for a century. The result is an extraordinary combination of a Baroque palace and a ten-terraced garden on an island in the middle of Lake Maggiore, the whole ensemble shaped like a ship with the statuary prow pointing north toward the Alps. Your private boat from Stresa reaches the island jetty before the public ferries — the gardens in the morning, before the day visitors, are filled with peacocks on the balustrades, statues among the lemon trees, and the extraordinary grottos decorated entirely in pebbles, shells, and tufa that form a series of rooms below the waterline. The palace contains the room where Napoleon slept in 1797 — the bed, the furniture, and the portrait of Josephine still in their places. Lunch on the island. In the afternoon, Isola Madre: the older, larger, more overgrown of the two open islands, whose botanical gardens include a white peacock and a 200-year-old Kashmir cypress thought to be the largest in Europe.

Isola Bella palace and ten-terraced Baroque gardens
The grottos — shells, pebbles, and subterranean rooms
Napoleon's bedroom with original furniture
Isola Madre botanical gardens — 200-year-old Kashmir cypress

Meals: Breakfast 5★ grand hotel, Stresa

Day 6

Stresa & the Western Shore

Hemingway's lake, Verdi's retreat.

Stresa was the most fashionable resort on the Italian lakes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the grand hotels along the waterfront were built for a clientele of European royalty, writers, and industrialists who needed a retreat from the summer heat of the cities. Hemingway stayed at the Grand Hotel des Îles Borromées while writing A Farewell to Arms and described the lake in detail; the hotel still has the room. Verdi composed his last two operas while staying near Stresa. Your morning is at leisure on the waterfront promenade, with a visit to the villa of the Borromeo family on the Piedmontese shore. The afternoon offers two options: the cable car up Mottarone for the panorama of all the Piedmontese lakes simultaneously, or a boat ride to Isola dei Pescatori — the third and smallest Borromean island, still inhabited by fishermen's families in the same stone houses they built in the 16th century. Dinner at the grand hotel on the lakefront — the white-glove service, the lake views, and the wine list that has been curated for a clientele accustomed to serious wine.

Stresa grand hotel waterfront — Hemingway and Verdi country
Optional: Mottarone cable car panorama of all Piedmontese lakes
Isola dei Pescatori — the fishing village island
Grand hotel lakefront dinner

Meals: Breakfast 5★ grand hotel, Stresa

Day 7

Return to Milan & Departure

The lake in the rear-view mirror for as long as possible.

The drive from Stresa back to Milan takes an hour. There is generally enough time for a final lakeside breakfast on the Stresa waterfront — the mountains behind the hotel, the ferry heading for the Borromean Islands, the light on the water that changes every fifteen minutes — before the motorway. Your driver delivers you to Milan Malpensa or Linate at the agreed time. Most guests begin looking at availability for the following year before they have cleared customs.

Final lakeside breakfast in Stresa
Private drive to Milan airport
Lake Maggiore last views on the road south

Meals: Breakfast

Where You'll Stay

Hand-picked hotels, every night.

We choose properties for character, location, and the kind of service that makes you feel looked after — not just checked in. Every hotel can be swapped for an alternative if you prefer.

Varenna / Bellagio, Lake Como

3 nights

5★ grand lakeside hotel

Eastern and central Lake Como

Our preferred properties have direct lake access, private jetties, and terraces above the water. Specific choice depends on your dates and preferences.

Stresa, Lake Maggiore

3 nights

5★ grand hotel

Stresa waterfront

The Stresa grand hotels are among the finest 19th-century lakeside hotels in Europe — swimming pools, spa, and the Borromean Islands visible from the terrace

Hotels shown are indicative of the standard we book. Upon request, we will provide a detailed itinerary with specific hotel options tailored to your preferences and budget.

What's in the Price

Included

6 nights in 5★ grand lakeside hotels
Daily breakfast at your hotel
Private boat to Villa del Balbianello
Villa Carlotta garden and villa visit
Private boat for Borromean Islands (Isola Bella, Isola Madre, Isola dei Pescatori)
Isola Bella palace and gardens visit
Private guides for villa and garden visits
All private vehicle transfers
All entrance fees for included sites
24/7 travel specialist support
Hamilton & Chase digital travel booklet with villa and garden history

Not Included

International flights to/from Milan
Travel insurance (required — we can arrange on request)
Meals not listed
Personal expenses
Gratuities for guides, drivers, and boat captains

Good to Know

The best months are April–May (azaleas and rhododendrons at Villa Carlotta in peak bloom) and September–October (warm water, golden light, and fewer visitors).
July and August are busy — the lakes are popular with Italian families; we still operate in this period but advise against it for guests who prefer tranquillity.
Villa del Balbianello is closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays — the itinerary is adjusted accordingly.
Private boats are arranged for all lake transfers; scheduled ferry services are not used.
This itinerary can be extended to include Lake Orta — the smallest and least-visited of the northern lakes, whose Franciscan island has been a place of pilgrimage since the 10th century.

Make It Yours

Optional add-ons & upgrades.

Every trip is different. These extras can be woven into your itinerary — just let your travel specialist know what catches your eye.

Villa d'Este one-night stay

The most famous hotel on Lake Como — a night at Villa d'Este in Cernobbio, with its mosaic pool floating on the lake surface and its Renaissance gardens

Price on Request

Helicopter over the lakes

A thirty-minute helicopter circuit of all three Italian lakes from above — the layout of Isola Bella, the bifurcated Como, and on clear days the Monte Rosa massif

Price on Request

Lugano day trip

Crossing into Switzerland from Lake Lugano — the Swiss side of the lakes has a different character, and Lugano's art museum holds the finest Thyssen collection outside Madrid

Price on Request

Private sailing on Lake Como

A half-day on a private sailing boat from Bellagio — the best way to understand the lake's scale, and the only way to see the villas from the water as they were designed to be seen

Price on Request

"Arriving at Villa del Balbianello by private boat after the other visitors had gone — the sun low, the wisteria on the loggia, the Alps perfectly reflected in the water — was one of the most beautiful things we have ever seen. The Italian Lakes reward the people who take them seriously."

Peter & Annabel S.

London, UK · The Italian Lakes: Villa Life, May 2024

Common Questions

Questions about this trip.

Is this itinerary suitable as a honeymoon?

Yes — it is one of the most popular honeymoon itineraries we offer. The combination of grand hotel terraces, private boat arrivals, and the particular romantic light on the lakes in the evening makes it very well suited. We can arrange specific enhancements: flowers on arrival, private terrace dinners, sunset boat rides.

What is the difference between Lake Como and Lake Maggiore?

Como is more dramatic — deeper, narrower, with steeper mountains. The villages are more closely spaced and the villa architecture is richer. Maggiore is wider and more open, with a more resort-like character in Stresa, and the Borromean Islands are a spectacle that Como cannot match. We include both because they complement each other perfectly.

Bespoke Journey

The Italian Lakes: Villa Life

7 days / 6 nights

From €3,290

per person

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