Villa d’Este on Lake Como

30 May 2023 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  11 minutes

© panoramio.com - Nikolai Karaneschev/cc-by-3.0

© panoramio.com – Nikolai Karaneschev/cc-by-3.0

The Villa d’Este, originally Villa del Garovo, is a Renaissance patrician residence in Cernobbio on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy. Both the villa and the 25-acre (100,000 m²) park which surrounds it have undergone significant changes since their sixteenth-century origins as a summer residence for the Cardinal of Como. Nevertheless, visiting the garden in 1903 for Century Magazine, Edith Wharton found this to be ‘the only old garden on Como which keeps more than a fragment of its original architecture’, and noted that ‘though Queen Caroline anglicised part of the grounds, the main lines of the Renaissance garden still exist’. Since 1873, the complex has been a luxury hotel.   read more…

The Lake Como

7 February 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  6 minutes

Villa d'Este © GhePeU

Villa d’Este © GhePeU

Lake Como (Lago di Como in Italian) is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore. At over 400 m (1320 ft) deep it is one of the deepest lakes in Europe and the bottom of the lake is more than 200 metres (656 ft) below sea-level. Lake Como has been a popular retreat for aristocrats and wealthy people since Roman times, and a very popular tourist attraction with many artistic and cultural gems. It has many villas and palaces (such as Villa Olmo, Villa Serbelloni and Villa Carlotta). Lake Como is widely regarded as being one of the most beautiful lakes in Italy.   read more…

Theme Week Lombardy

24 November 2014 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon voyage, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  7 minutes

Villa Isola del Garda © Luca Capuccini

Villa Isola del Garda © Luca Capuccini

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. A sixth of Italy’s population lives in Lombardy and about a fifth of Italy’s GDP is produced in the region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country. It is also the region with the most Unesco World Heritage Sites in Italy. Although Lombardy is often identified as merely an economic and industrial powerhouse, it has a rich and diverse cultural heritage. The many examples range from prehistory to the present day, through the Roman period and the Renaissance and can be found both in museums and churches that enrich cities and towns around the region. Lombardy contains numerous museums (over 330) of different types: ethnographic, historical, technical-scientific, artistic and naturalistic which testify to the historical-cultural and artistic development of the region.   read more…

Como in Lombardy

26 October 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

Como Panorama © Nicolago

Como Panorama © Nicolago

Como is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy. It is the administrative capital of the Province of Como. Its proximity to Lake Como and to the Alps has made Como a popular tourist destination and the city contains numerous works of art, churches, gardens, museums, theatres, parks and palaces: the Duomo (seat of Diocese of Como), the Basilica of Sant’Abbondio, the Villa Olmo, the public gardens with the Tempio Voltiano, the Teatro Sociale, the Broletto (the city’s medieval town hall) and the 20th century Casa del Fascio. Como was the birthplace of a good number of historically notable figures, including the (somewhat obscure) poet Caecilius who is mentioned by Catullus in the 1st century BCE, the far more substantial literary figures of Pliny the Elder and the Younger, Pope Innocent XI, the scientist Alessandro Volta, and Cosima Liszt, second wife of Richard Wagner and long-term director of the Bayreuth Festival.   read more…

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