Yes, of course. This is the same Lake Como where George Clooney has chosen to live. Maybe you may meet him by chance while he is sipping a glass of white wine in a small bar in front of Laglio’s pier. But this is not the story we want to tell you. Lake Como is not a Hollywood discovery. It has been loved along the centuries, definitely since the Romans of the colony Nova Comum (founded on the lakeshore by Julius Caesar in 59 BC) set foot here and built their majestic villas along its shores. They brought their own culture and amazing products: olives and vineyards. Here they were looking for silence, rest, inspiration by the complex beauty of the places. The flash of inspiration for the landscape of Lake Como, anyway, happened much later, during the Romantic epoch. And it couldn’t have been otherwise given the so peculiar characteristics of these places, for their mysterious nature and their beautiful yet at times unsetting nature. With the high wooded mountains which arise vertically from the lake and the sky clouding in sudden storms, Lario was, and is, made for the most sensible spirits, for travelers capable to fully understand its sublime beauty.
The 19th century was seduced by it. Here came Goethe who described bewitchedly its shiny air, here a novel like Fogazzaro’s Malombra was set, and here tragic and passional love stories were consumed. For centuries great intellectuals and casual travellers came here to find a place where they could reinvent their own story, restart a new life. Some left describing it nostalgically. Some stayed, unable to move away from its strange and magnetic charm. Someone officially disappeared continuing a different existence in faraway places, and protected from the proverbial discretion of our people.

Many people come here looking for the shores where dolce vita is lived in the most luxurious villas (bought for millions by movie stars, footballers and big magnates from all over the world) and in 5+ stars hotels. This is one aspect of our lake, there are even tours dedicated to this but you will not find them on our website. Here you’ll rather find hints to discover wilder places, amazing and little visited mountains, ancient abbeys hiding less known art treasures, secluded beaches, ancient villas where time seems to have stopped and lifestyle has never changed.

We want to tell you and let you know from pristine points of view the most beautiful and the most famous places and make you fall in love with the least well-known ones along the Lario, places that often even those living here have never visited, or don’t know, or cannot remember they saw, still full of the immense beauty of this landscape. Take some time, and start reading…