The siren song of northern Italy beckons to us all at some point, and the best hotels in Lake Como brilliantly capture the allure of the region. Grand wedding cake villas ring the lake, their façades mirrored in the water, while in the distance lie the Alps. It’s a landscape that has drawn tourists for centuries and has come to embody the Italian concept of dolce far niente, or the sweetness of doing nothing. But in Como, “nothing” means sailing in a riva boat on the lake, meandering through a garden, or sipping a Campari spritz by a pool.
The 18th-century birth of the European “Grand Tour” unleashed a worldwide obsession with Como that brought artists, writers, composers, statesmen, and other well-heeled visitors to the lake’s shores. Today, the area’s appeal remains unceasing, and its landscape largely preserved in its mix of Belle Époque and neoclassical designs. Luckily for travelers, Como’s accommodations—from centuries old palaces to hotels that were built to rival the grandeur of the region’s famous villas themselves, are more than places to stay. They’re some of the lake’s most captivating treasures.
Perks: Lake access, spa, pool, fine dining restaurant, in the heart of Bellagio
Passed down in one Italian family for four generations, Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni is deeply enmeshed in the history of Lake Como. Its many rooms, hallways, and grand staircases retain the allure of a sprawling family estate with antique Murano chandeliers and gilded, overstuffed furniture in Como’s signature romantic opulence. A litany of famous guests have slept within Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni’s walls, and roaming its halls means unearthing pieces of the hotel’s storied past and closely guarded secrets.
Franz Liszt’s piano sits in a room mostly out of view except for those who look for it. Around a corner is the suite where JFK had an Italian affair that history tried to cover up, and tucked away in a suite is a desk from Winston Churchill’s stay. The hotel’s most unexpected treasure is a utilitarian one: its bedding. The silk duvets which grace each of the guest beds have been hand-sewn since the hotel’s founding in 1873. Originally woven from the silk produced from the mulberry trees that used to grow around lake, the craft has been maintained by the hotel for over 150 years, even as locally grown silk becomes a remnant of the past. Today the silk duvets are still sewn by hand in the underbelly of the hotel. From $1,135 per night.
Perks: Lake access, spa, pool, Michelin-starred restaurant
If Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni is a pure example of Lake Como’s old-world style, preserved in its opulent splendor, il Sereno represents the new. Built on a stone grotto foundation that looks similar to the base of the other 19th-century wedding cake villas dotting the lake, il Sereno takes a different turn as the eye wanders up, emerging from the lake as a clean-lined modernist vision. The product of Spanish architect Patricia Urquiola, Il Sereno’s contemporary design is very much a choice in a place so prized for a very particular type of beauty. But it’s a welcome breath of fresh air, a clean palette from which the eye is drawn outward to the lake and to the Alps, rather than inwards to ornate woodwork and heavy textile furnishings. Il Sereno is designed as if to convince you to move here, with all-suite guest spaces which have a sexy seductiveness that entices you to linger a little while longer. From $1,040 per night.
Perks: Lake access, floating pool, fine dining restaurant, historic gardens
Gilded Age novelist Edith Wharton fell in love with the tiered, folly-filled gardens of Villa d’Este when she visited in the early days of the 20th century, and today the manicured grounds continue to enchant guests and serve as the centerpiece of the hotel. While the gardens remain virtually unchanged since Wharton’s visit, Villa d’Este’s interiors have evolved to something more reminiscent of a sleek luxury ubiquitous in properties the world over from Doha to Palm Beach than its original Italian palace origins. Yet the most alluring of its spaces remains preserved and tucked away often out of view. Hidden behind an unassuming door near the villa’s main restaurant is a room designed in 1805 specifically to be a bedroom for a very important guest: Napoleon.
The then-villa’s owner, Countess Vittoria Pino, invited the French emperor to stay and promptly commissioned a room on the ground floor for his arrival. Countess Vittoria commissioned the space to be elaborately decorated in silk and brocades with ornate plasterwork ceilings. Yet Napoleon never showed up. Today the room, which is known as the “Napoleon Room,” remains largely untouched from its original design, preserved in its history almost as if it could be used at a moment’s notice for its original intention. From $1,870 per night.
Perks: Pool, spa, fine dining restaurant, very spacious rooms
Across the lake from Bellagio, in the relatively sleepy town of Menaggio, Grand Hotel Victoria reigns supreme. The historic building operated for decades as a decent tourist hotel but a recent top-to-bottom renovation transformed what was a tired, Belle Époque place to stay into a modernist reinterpretation of a classic Lake Como villa. The bones remain but have been enlivened with bright white paint, and paired down with angular furniture, blonde wood flooring, sculptural lighting, and smart technology in the guest rooms that seems out of the next century. The hotel’s crown jewel is its new subterranean spa—one of the largest in all of Lake Como—which offers a series of aquatic therapy rooms and pools that are so cozy, you might even forget about the big, beautiful body of water beyond the premises. From $1,043 per night.
Perks: Near the city center, smart TV, pet friendly
It’s tempting to arrive at the Como San Giovanni train station and leave immediately for one of the classic villas that ring the lake. Yet resist the urge and linger in the town of Como itself, and wander its ancient medieval streets, piazzas, and central Gothic Renaissance Duomo. Not far from the Duomo is the Palazzo Albricci Peregrini. Built in the 15th century, the palazzo opened as a six-room boutique hotel in 2016. A stay here is a window into an aristocratic home in the center of Como, one far different from the palatial villas further north on the lake. Today Palazza Albricci Peregrini retains its medieval walls and remnants of what is believed to be a Roman tower. Traces of an early 16th-century fresco adorn the courtyard as does a funerary stele of Bishop Albricio Peregrino, one of the palazzo’s earliest tenants. From $595 per night.
Perks: Lake access, spa, pool, fine dining restaurant, close proximity to Villa Carlotta
Grand Hotel Tremezzo can feel utterly familiar. Perhaps that’s due to its sunny yellow façade and iconic orange window shades that seems to have inspired the Wes Anderson aesthetic, or perhaps it’s because eagle-eyed guests will recognize it from the classic 1932 film, The Grand Hotel starring Greta Garbo. It was Garbo who perhaps really put the hotel on the map, and unsurprisingly it’s the Greta Suite, named in the actress’s honor, that feels like the sum of Tremezzo’s indulgent parts, with spacious rooms and an oversized bath overlooking the lake.
With the unique distinction of having been built in 1910 specifically as a hotel, rather than an over-the-top private villa like many of Como’s hotels, Tremezzo buzzes with a see-and-be-seen energy that seems a century strong. While Grand Hotel Tremezzo has its own lovely grounds, the manicured acres of the Villa Carlotta, now a botanical garden and museum, are just next door. From $1,071 per night.
Perks: Lake access, kayaks and stand up paddle boards, pool, fine dining restaurant
It was here, at the grand 18th-century palace Passalacqua, that the great opera composer Vincenzo Bellini conducted one of the great love affairs of his life and where he penned two of his beloved operas. And in a case of art mirroring life, or perhaps the other way around, Passalacqua, with its almost too beautiful to be believed grounds and resplendently decorated rooms, seems today like the backdrop for one of his romantic operas. Indeed, the rooms of the original 1787 villa are today named for Bellini heroines, and one feels that to stay here is to be a member of the chorus of a great Italian opera. A private residence until 2018, Passalaqua feels like a world unto itself, filled with antiques, art, original carved ceilings and wall frescoes that sing of its history. On its grounds is a two-century-old greenhouse and terraced gardens from which the resident florist cuts flowers for the hotel daily. From $1,700 per night.
Craving an escape? From colorful carry-ons to cleverly designed packing cubes (how did we ever travel without them?), shop everything you need to make the journey in style—and as streamlined and stress-free as possible.
