Italian Lakes

[LillyP88]

We are planning a 4 night trip in April and steering towards Lake Como. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to stay? The hotels we have seen so far look awful!

Any suggestions on itinerary, activities, restaurants etc - all welcome 😊

We stayed in Argegno, up the coast from Como.
it’s a small village/town away from the hustle of the main sites. We stayed at “villa belvedere Como lake relais” which is one of the few hotels we found right on the banks of the lake rather than behind the road which runs around it.
We paid for the luxury rooms at the front of the property (lake views) which had the most stunning outlook. The hotel had a nice breakfast and had its own pier which we have a private boat tour pick us up from. Dinner wasn’t great, we ate elsewhere in the village the second night.
Argegno also has the Pigra furnicular which is a fantastic viewpoint away from the crowds in Como. We really enjoyed our stay. We did a private boat tour of the lake (well bottom bit of the lake) and got them to drop us in Como where we spent an afternoon. We then got the passenger ferry back afterwards. We didn’t stay long enough to explore any of the other places as we were just travelling through. Fully recommend splashing out on the private boat tour if you can though, memories of a lifetime!
although I will say April your weather might be very dicey. We went start of June and it was raining the first day we got there, but then was 30c the next day. The rain had caused a lot of debris on the lake which caused issues with some of the boats.

We spent 4 nights in Lake Maggiore in Stresa. Stunningly beautiful and the lake has the Borromean Islands, with their lovely gardens and palaces. I think our hotel was called Las Palmas. Pretty, right on the lake, good restaurant.

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Hotel La Palma in Stresa, Lake Maggiore is amazing. Lovely roof top bar and pool and lake front pool too. There is a shuttle from Milan Malpensa - about 45 mins. Boat trips to Borromean Islands, Botanical gardens, possible to do a train journey up one side of lake and return by boat. We also stayed in Hotel Villa Marie in Tremezzo on Lake Como. Probably need a car for that. Close to Villa Carlotta and Balbianello (in James Bond and Star Wars) boat trip to Bellagio.

Sirmione on Lake Garda is lovely.

I stayed at the Hotel du Lac in Menaggio. Nice traditional hotel in a good location.

if budget allows then also recommend Grand Hotel Tremezzo just a little down the coast.

I know this is an old-ish thread but for anyone searching for Italian lakes or Como like I did earlier this year I wanted to say that we followed the recommendations of @maraudingmaraudersand have just returned from a stay at Villa Belvedere in Argegno on Lake Como. Lovely hotel, amazing views, great location with ferry, bus, boat tours and cable car. Thank you ! Hope you had a nice time too OP wherever you ended up booking.

Oh I’m so glad you had a great time!

@ StripeyBedSocks and @maraudingmarauders
Thanks to your recommendations on this thread I have just booked a stay at Villa Belvedere at the end of October !

I know the weather might be changeable at that time of year but a week there might hopefully include a couple of fine days. I’d rather chance that and the shorter daylight hours than face crowds TBH.

Any restaurant recommendations for anywhere on the Lake? (Good Food is a main highlight in all of my holidays)

I will report back on this thread as I found it so useful when I was looking for info. as there is just so much choice!

@platinummoonI imagine Oct is a lovely time to go, the lake is surely beautiful all year round. We had dinner at the hotel one evening and it was lovely. Lots of fish on the menu including the lake perch. We had our daughter with us the rest of the time so it was mostly pizza and pasta at other places. We had lunch in Argegno one day, think it was called La Piazzetta where I had a nice caprese. We wanted to go back one evening but it was full so obviously popular. You really can’t go wrong as there are so many places around the lake and lots of ingredients are grown locally right a the end of the lake beyond Como. We went to Mennagio one day and Como itself one evening . Just check the ferry and bus times, the ferry finishes earlier than expected like 6pm. So if you are going to use it to go out for dinner then plan to get the bus back. Timetables easy to figure out, can buy ferry tickets at the kiosk right by the hotel. For the bus we bought the tickets at a machine at the terminal.

Hope you have an amazing time!

Thanks for info. and suggestions, @StripeyBedSocks
We’re going to stay on Maggiore then Garda first on this 4 week road trip so it will be interesting to compare the big 3, plus we’ll do day trips to see Orta and d’Ilseo as we’re driving our own car down there.

My experience of visiting the Italian lakes at the end of October was that early mornings and evenings were colder than I expected, it was lovely in the middle of the day though. Obviously totally anecdotal but I hadn’t packed appropriately (this was before the days of online weather apps on smartphones).

Thanks, @Shinyhappyapple That’s a great heads up for what to take with us.