Northern Lake Como tour from Colico

Meeting of participants in Colico / Gravedona at 09.00 and departure by minibus / private bus to Menaggio. Short stop in this beautiful town, featuring a central square with cafes and shops and a beautiful promenade offering a unique panorama. At 10.45 travel onwards for Cernobbio; we will cross the panoramic road that overlooks the left branch of Lake Como.

Cernobbio is a very famous and renowned tourist center. From the first decades of this century Cernobbio was one of the favorite holiday resorts for wealthy Como and Milan families, as evidenced by the large number of villas and gardens scattered around the area including Villa Carlotta, which we will visit.

Villa Carlotta is a place of rare beauty: here masterpieces of nature and human genius harmoniously coexist in 70,000 square meters between gardens and museum facilities. In a natural reservoir, between the lake and the mountains, the Marquis Giorgio Clerici erected a beautiful, sobernic mansion surrounded by an Italian garden at the end of 1600, in front of a breathtaking scenery on the  Grigne mountains and Bellagio. Villa Carlotta's park is known for the stunning spring bloom of rhododendrons and azaleas in over 150 varieties.

However, every season of the year is suitable for a visit: ancient specimens of camellias, cedars and secular sequoia, immense planar trees and exotic essences are set in a variety of settings created in centuries by garden architects. At the end of the visit, at 11.30 am we'll take the ferry to Bellagio and have time to visit the village and to have lunch.

Bellagio is one of the most beautiful tourist resorts not only of Lake Como, but of the whole world; known as "the pearl of the lake", Bellagio offers classy hotels and restaurants, elegant and quaint places to admire enchanting views. At 3.00 pm meeting and departure for Lecco with time available for a city tour.

The fame of Lecco is mainly related to Alessandro Manzoni who was a young man living in the eighteenth-century at villa of Caleotto (now Manzonian Museum) and here he had inspiration for many pages of the novel The Betrothed. The lake and surrounding mountains make it a unique setting, both old and modern, at the same time. You can breathe Manzoni air mainly in the Pescarenico district, which the writer described so meticulously.

But in addition to "that branch of Lake Como" in Lecco there is more. History and culture intertwine and we can discover them thanks to civic museums. At the end of the visit, at 5.00 pm, departure for return to Colico / Gravedona.