LAKE OF STARS
For many, Lake Como is famous for its ties to dishy celebs such as George Clooney and Daniel Craig. But it has so much more gorgeousness than that. By Lisa Templeton
‘GOD bless the Italians,” I muttered to myself. I was sitting in the early morning sun at the Caffé Bar Sport on the Piazza della Chiesa in Bellagio watching the world go by.
Before me was a steaming cappuccino, my five-year-old, tongue out, penning a postcard to her dad, and a view of the square with its trickling fountain and the sturdy facade of the 11th-century Basilica di San Giacomo.
In the doorway to the café were three waiters, slumped and sucking on cigarettes while they talked in Italian and blew smoke out of the sides of their mouths.
Suddenly my eye was caught by two women jogging towards us, one 20-ish and the other possibly 45, both trim and attractive — clearly mother and daughter.
The lounging waiters stiffened like hunting dogs, suddenly alert, and fixed their eyes upon the mother, tracking her as she ran by with her black ponytail swinging.
When she’d finally disappeared around the corner, they turned to each other with wide eyes and one breathed: “Bella Mamma!”
And that’s when I thought: God bless Italy.
For this is part of Italy’s charm — its chivalry and reverence for women, regardless of age. It’s in the proffered hand of the man helping you onto the bobbing water taxi and the smile of the tall, Dantesque man at the heavenly delicatessen, the Bellagio Carni Caligari, as he hands over a neat paper package of parma ham, almond-stuffed olives and roasted aubergine.
There is a sense of safety in a little village such as Bellagio, perched as it is on the tip of the peninsula that splits Lake Como, or Lago di Como as the locals have it, into its distinctive Y-shape. Here, where all cobbled streets lead steeply down to those lapping shores, there is nowhere else to go and you can drop your fear that someone may wish to liberate your bag.
Then there is a heady mix of soft light and gentle warmth, the flowers dripping from the turmeric-yellow and rose-peach buildings that run down narrow alleys to the water, and the distant views of bobbing yachts on sun-dazzled water backed by snow-capped mountains. It’s all so seductive, you may suddenly find that you want to wear dresses and trip down the streets in heels, swinging your handbag.
If you mention Lake Como to pretty much any woman, chances are she will respond with two words: George Clooney.
Hollywood’s ultimate silver fox is perhaps the lake’s most famous resident and one of its biggest marketing trump cards. Newly single, he is currently splashed across gossip-magazine covers
around the globe, grinning handsomely in vine-shaded cafés on the lake’s shores, and taking regular outings in his motor boat, ironically named Boat.
If he is heartbroken, it seems a spell at his opulent villa in Laglio, the small town on the lake’s southwest shores, is doing a great deal towards helping.
And while it is true that he adds to the natural beauty of the lake, there is far more to Lake Como than this.
The playground to the titled and wellheeled since Roman times, when the likes of Pliny the Younger came here to take a break from upholding Roman law, the lake is staggeringly beautiful.
Perched on the Swiss border and carved out by glaciers, it is one of Europe’s deepest lakes at over 400m, which takes it to 200m below sea level at its deepest. Towered over by the mountains that herald the Alps to come, its wooded shorelines are dotted with charming red-roofed villages, church towers, cypresses and palatial villas, which somehow manage to take up a colossal amount of space in the most elegant and understated way. Today this may be the playground for some of the world’s nouveau riche, but by God, is it classy.
We visited the Villa del Balbianello, a ferry ride across the water from Bellagio, and a short wooded walk from the cafélined village of Lenno.
This palatial residence is where Daniel Craig’s James Bond lay on a deckchair amid fabulous gardens, recovering from torture and being unwittingly betrayed by the seductive Vesper in Casino Royale.
Built for a cardinal in 1787 on the site of a 13th-century Franciscan monastery to include its bell towers, the villa had fallen into disrepair when it was bought in 1974 by Milanese billionaire explorer, Count Guido Monzino, who, terrified by the thought of kidnapping in ’70s Italy, had built a secret passage to lead from behind a bookshelf in his office in the loggia, through the back of various cupboards lower down the house to the harbour below, for a quick getaway.
And this piqued the interest of my little one, who until this Enid Blyton-esque moment had been rather loath to tour the house. From then on, she was hooked and fought her way to the front of the tour, which took in some of the count’s mementos of his travels, including the suit he’d worn to lead Italy’s first expedition to Everest and the dog sled he’d taken to the North Pole.
After the tour, we lunched in the gardens, enjoying our picnic of cheese, olives and thinly sliced courgette, grilled and soaked in olive oil, as we admired the extraordinary view of the lake and watched two gardeners waving precariously from the top of a tree as they hand-pruned it into a distinctive dome shape (It is said that the ficuses that wrap the pillars of the loggio are hand-trimmed with scissors).
We went back to Lenno by water taxi, scudding along with the wind in our hair and admiring the villa from its best vantage point: the water.
The thing about holidaying on Lake Como is that it is incredibly restful. Aside from a few historic villas, there is not much you feel obliged to see — no dutiful dashing around dark cathedrals and galleries for those seeking la dolce vita.
A holiday here is all about strolling down to the lake for a swim, lounging in the sun with a book resting on your chest while you gaze mindlessly at the view, and drinking dark coffee in shore-side cafés while eating dainty pastries.
On the one day we did feel active, we
Aside from a few villas, there is not much you feel obliged to see — no dutiful dashing around dark cathedrals
strolled over the peninsula and down a long, cobbled short-cut to the little port of Pescallo, where we hired a kayak from a handsome and extremely reluctant Italian, who felt it was far too windy for us girls to venture out onto the water.
But I canoe in SA, so after some considerable persuasive talk from me, and once he’d bundled my little one in a life jacket, he let us loose onto the water.
And it was glorious. It’s true that, once we’d passed through the sheltered harbour with little yachts bobbing on their moorings, it was very blustery and the waves were big — my daughter found herself immediately swamped in the kayak and she sat in the equivalent of a play pool for the duration of our paddle. But it was fabulous to slip along the shore, looking at the occasional house hidden in the trees and taking a swim in water so clear a friend had described it as unfair on the fish — any hungry duck could just take their pick.
That evening, we did what we did every evening: strolled down to the water’s edge to sip an icy glass of Prosecco while nibbling peanuts and idly watching the ferries coming and going on the water beyond the geranium pots at the edge of the terrace.
For when on Lake Como, one must do as the Romans once did: enjoy the sweet life.