Destination: Italy

I’m disinclined to like a city that gave its name to a Las Vegas casino. But after a couple of afternoons prowling its steep streets, I’ve gotta admit — Bellagio is pretty nice. For the best Lake Como experience, I still prefer home-basing in Varenna, which feels a bit more real and less pretentious. But a targeted side-trip to Bellagio is well worthwhile.

Bellagio feels bold and confident. It knows that it has the lake’s glitziest cachet. Its pastel-hued grand hotels stretch out along a lazy lakefront with boat docks, trees, flower boxes, overpriced cafés, and piles of visitors.

On a sunny day sandwiched between gloomy ones, hordes of impatient travelers (eager to hop to the next town) meet each arriving boat. While the published boat schedules are nearly impossible to decipher, and the docks can be jammed, somehow it all just works…like everything in Italy. Key strategies: Assume a boat is going to your destination sometime in the next 30-60 minutes. Your job is to ask anyone who seems knowledgeable what time it leaves, and where it leaves from. Don’t wait until the last minute to buy your ticket (since they can’t be bought on board, and long lines can jam up the ticket windows). For a full day of lake-hopping, I splurged on the €15 all-day pass. Cost-wise, I basically broke even, but it saved me loads of time (and, probably, several missed boats while waiting in ticket lines).

While all of the lakefront towns have steep steps leading up from the waterfront, Bellagio’s have more class — they’re wider and more manicured, dressed up with lush flowers, draping ivy, and chichi wine bars. Yeah, I can see why this place is so popular.

Bellagio’s old town is fun to explore, but eventually you’ll need a break. From the promenade — clogged with fancy hotels, designer sports cars, and too many tourists with too much money — a row of carefully cultivated plane trees lures you for a tranquil lakefront stroll.

If you don’t have enough time or interest to ride the boat to some of the famous villas (like the Villa del Balbianello or the Villa Carlotta), just walk to one of the only slightly less stunning gardens near Bellagio or Varenna.  For example, the Villa Melzi Gardens, a scenic 15-minute walk from downtown Bellagio, provides a good sampling of lakefront gardens, without the crowds or hassles of the more famous ones.

During my few days on Lake Como, the weather was erratic — stunning sunshine one day, socked in and drizzly the next, then sun again, then rain again — but I didn’t care. Somehow, mountain lakes are equally serene in any weather.

On most trips, I stubbornly solider on with my research duties regardless of the weather. But lately I’m experimenting with letting the forecast dictate my work. I try to do the outdoor stuff (hikes and boat rides) when it’s nice out, and save the drudgery (pounding the pavement to update hotels) for cloudy or rainy days. This worked like a charm on Lake Como, where I saved my “riding a lake boat from villa to villa” responsibilities for the nicest day.

There are plenty of days where my work really feels like work. But today, I’d have been happy to pay for the privilege. (Don’t tell Rick.)

A variety of lake boats — which come and go every half hour — make it easy to connect Lake Como’s various villages and villas. While most travelers head straight up to the congested top deck, I prefer to stand in the lower area in front of the bridge, where the passengers board. Positioned here, you can move around easily for unobstructed views in both directions, and you get to observe the boat dockings up close. The deckhand generally tries to lasso the cleat as the boat approaches the dock. Success earns a smattering of applause from the other crew members (and any tourists who happen to notice). With a miss, the deckhand hangs his head and hauls in the soggy line to try again from closer range.

And every boat trip comes with a stunning cut-glass alpine backdrop. No matter which country you’re viewing them from — Italy, Switzerland, France, Austria, Germany, Slovenia — the Alps are equally majestic.

Even the docks on Lake Como have a certain canopied class.

My favorite lakeside villa was the Villa del Balbianello. Reaching it requires a restful hike through a wooded park from the boat dock in the town of Lenno. Finally, you emerge from the woods into a wonderland of stoic cypresses and knobby plane trees.

The Villa del Balbianello is familiar to movie buffs (like me) as the place where James Bond recovered from a particularly bruising experience in Casino Royale, and where Anakin first kissed Padme (and later married her) in Star Wars: Episode II. Sometimes I’m tickled by cinematic connections, but in this case the beauty of the villa’s setting trumped any fantasy world.

Being a stony statue, standing sentry at the Villa del Balbianello, may be an even better gig than mine is.

Sitting just across the lake from busy Bellagio, Villa Carlotta is more crowded than Villa del Balbianello. The interior — a gallery of Neoclassical sculpture — feels like a rerun of other Italian museums. But the sprawling gardens are a delight.

From inside the mansion, you can look out over the terraced gardens and across the lake.

Villa Carlotta’s gardens are big enough to be dramatically varied, from a lush jungle canyon to this clever maze of giant azalea bushes — and all of it with million-dollar views over Lake Como.

After editing Rick’s writing for many years, I’ve noticed he uses certain words in a very particular way. For example, he reserves “convalesce” for a select few places. Lake Como is one of them. And after my nearly two weeks battling South Italy, some convalescence was exactly what I needed.

Traveling from Naples to Lake Como, I grappled with severe culture shock…without ever leaving Italy. In just a few hours — screaming past Rome, Florence, and Bologna on the bullet train — I went from the unbridled south to the mellow, almost Teutonic north. Stepping off the train in Milan, the sleek efficiency stunned me. I had just enough time to grab a designer yuppie sandwich (for triple the cost of a slice of Neapolitan street pizza) before hopping on my connecting train to Lake Como.

Arriving in the lakeside town of Varenna, I settled into the Hotel du Lac, a pristine Old World hotel with all the modern comforts. The hotel clings to a bluff just over the lake’s tranquil waters. Run with a polish and efficiency unusual in Italy, it feels vaguely Swiss…fitting, since I could see Switzerland from my lakeview balcony.

Set up in comfort for three whole days, I could feel my system decompress from the pressure cooker of Naples. Here’s a photo essay of the lakeside retreat of Varenna.

For decades, Rick has favored Varenna as the best home base for exploring Lake Como. Brassy Bellagio and well-connected Como have their fans, but after spending a few days here, it’s clear why Rick hangs his hat in Varenna.

Varenna is just the right size for a relaxing vacation. It has a train station, a boat dock, a picturesque church crowning a tidy square, and two little grocery stores that specialize in made-to-order sandwiches for lakeside picnics.

On a clear day, Varenna’s technicolor harbor lures sun-worshippers to watch the lake boats come and go.

And even when it’s socked in, Varenna’s vacationers still enjoy chatting by the harbor. The town’s fancier, more expensive restaurants are tucked deep in the twisty lanes, but — conveniently — the two big lakeside cafés are affordable and functional. These places let you dine on €10 pasta with €10,000,000 views.

Varenna’s steep lanes climb up the hill from the harborfront. The town’s top gelateria provides cushy cushions on the stony steps.

Capping the hill over Varenna — a stiff 20-minute huff above the town square — an old castle provides views across the entire lake. Hiking back down into Varenna, you enjoy sweeping views of olive groves, cypress trees, and hamlets hugging the shoreline.

After a busy day’s hike, it’s time for dinner. When traveling, I have an ethic about sampling — at least once — whatever the local specialty is, no matter how gross it sounds. On Lake Como, locals still dine on what, at one time, was a “hardship” food (like lutefisk for Norwegian American immigrants, or salt cod for the Basques). Missoltino is lake fish that’s preserved by being salted and sun-dried. Weeks later, it’s rehydrated and served for dinner. It wasn’t terrible. But no matter how you dress it up with delicate grilled polenta cakes and trendy plating, at some level it’s still old fish. At a later meal, having satisfied my obligation to try missoltino, I ordered a delicious, fresh filet of lavarello (lake whitefish)…much better.

As Varenna’s street lamps twinkle on, those characteristic stepped lanes are washed in vibrant colors.