Miles to Milan: An Afternoon in Beautiful Lake Como
Lake Como appears in People magazine at least once a month as an iconic example of favorite celebrity villas in Europe. The most notable of these is, of course, George Clooney who commonly deems Lake Como “the most beautiful place in the world.” Reading celebrity news was definitely a guilty pleasure of mine when I was younger and had time for it so I just had to check out Lake Como on my trip to Milan!
Lake Como did not disappoint! It was certainly beautiful and we had a great day there enjoying the views. We did make a mistake that almost caused some big problems for us and, hopefully, everyone can learn from it!
This post is part of a multi-part series about my trip to Milan. Trip report index:
- A $10,000 European Summer Trip for $266
- Non-stop Flights in United BusinessFirst Class on the Boeing 767
- Two Days Sightseeing and Shopping in Milan
- The Park Hyatt Milan
- An Afternoon in Beautiful Lake Como
Getting to Lake Como and Bellagio
The train from Milan to Lake Como is 33 minutes and arrives to the Como San Giovanni stop. We took the 11:10 am train (we wanted to enjoy a complimentary Diamond breakfast at the Park Hyatt Milan). Our train was 15 minutes late so we arrived at the train station of Como San Giovanni at noon. As we had tickets for the 5:45 pm train to Zurich, we had about 5 and a half hours to spend in Lake Como. Our plan was to get to Bellagio, have a scenic lunch there and return in time for our train ride through the Swiss Alps.
I will digress for a moment, but this will become relevant later. Our train to Como being 15 minutes amused me because I remembered a story from living in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2008. Anyone who’s been to Switzerland is well aware that everything is extremely efficient and runs on time. One of my Swiss friends at the time had told me that the average time delay for Swiss trains is probably 30 seconds. However, it should actually be much shorter as the trains from Italy are always 15 minutes late. I told my friend Rene this story on the train and we laughed given the delay we had just experienced.
Once at the train stop, there is a bus to the main town of Como. From there, you can either travel around the lake by bus or ferry and each leaves about every 1 or 2 hours.
The bus is very cheap (between 1 and 2 euros) while the fast ferry to Bellagio costs about 15 euros each way. We ended up on the fast ferry, which takes about an hour to get to Bellagio. Bellagio is only one of many stops along the way and one can certainly travel further and spend far more time more time gazing at the villas and mountain scenery.
The full timetable for the ferry schedule is published online.
Bellagio
The ferry ride along the lake affords views of the lakeside villas and various angles of mountains that surround the lake. As it was very sunny during our ferry ride, the pictures I took really do not do justice to the scenic views. From afar, on the hills, you can see vineyards and even Roman ruins. The hour on the ferry was well worth the wait!
The town of Bellagio itself is very pleasant with flowers and quaint streets with scenic alleyways. We had lunch right on the water across from Hotel Florence.
After lunch, we had a very quick walk through the town before it was time to board our bus for the return to the Como train station.
I really liked Bellagio and would be happy to come back and spend a few days there someday…
Returning To The Train station: Some Trouble!
We opted to return to Como from Bellagio by bus, which was set to depart at 4:10 pm and arrive at 5:20 pm. Figuring this out was the first order of business as soon as we arrived in Bellagio. Given our train was at 5:45, we thought this would give us plenty of time even if the bus were slightly late. But of course, we were wrong! Because we saw buses leave from the train station Como San Giovanni, neither of us ever questioned the final destination of the bus. We somehow both just assumed it terminates at the train station. And that’s where we went wrong!
We arrived in the main town of Como around 5:15 and realized we had to take another bus to get to the train station. 30 minutes should be enough, but it took us another 10 minutes to find the bus stop and the buses themselves don’t come that often. As we realized we are likely to miss our train if we continue to wait for the bus, we also realized that we were silly to use up all our euros in anticipation of leaving the EU that day. Now taking a taxi was not an option. We resigned ourselves to having to work out switching to the 7:45 pm train once we manage to make it to the train station. I won’t go into my frantic running around trying to locate the nearest ATM while staying within site of the bus stop.
The bus finally came and we arrived at the train station at 5:53, 8 minutes after our train was set to depart. The next move was the only intelligent one. We ran quickly to the train platform and I noticed a few people waiting. I asked which train they were waiting for and a nice Swiss German gentleman informed me our train to Zurich was 15 minutes delayed! Of course it was… because trains from Italy to Switzerland are always 15 minutes late! I nearly hugged him when he told me.
Anyone else ever miss or almost miss a train in Italy?
Final thoughts
I am glad we got to spend an afternoon in Lake Como, but as expected, the visit was much too short. Although I lived in Switzerland for 6 months in the French part and have visited the German part a few times, I have never been to southern Switzerland and the area around Lugano. It’s very likely I will plan another, likely longer, there and spend a few days in Lake Como to truly enjoy it and visit more towns along the lake. I leave everyone with a memorable photo of George Clooney’s famous Villa Oleandra on the lake courtesy of made-in-italy.com.
Check out the rest of my trip report, including how we booked a $10,000 European summer trip for $266:
- A $10,000 European Summer Trip for $266
- Non-stop Flights in United BusinessFirst Class on the Boeing 767
- Two Days Sightseeing and Shopping in Milan
- The Park Hyatt Milan
- An Afternoon in Beautiful Lake Como
Like this post? Why not join 500+ readers who receive our blog posts by email? Enter your email address below to subscribe and never miss another update or great miles deal. You can also follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
Thank you for the pictures and explanation. I ve also seen many pictures of Lake Como and have always wanted to go there. Great post!