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the times Saturday May 8 2021 52 Travel

Villa Lario’s infinity pool The town of Bellagio

the times Saturday May 8 2021 Travel 53

more luxury Como 3hotels Grand Hotel Tremezzo Clooney’s Como, Opened in 1910 with unashamedly elitist aspirations, the Tremezzo, below, is pure belle époque fabulousness. Still privately owned, it majors on good old-fashioned service and friendly staff; many have been here for years. The building is a from the newest vast art nouveau palace looking towards Bellagio; you can nip across the water for an evening passeggiata. Otherwise three swimming pools, five bars and restaurants, and a spa with spot on the lake hammam and yoga studios will keep you amused on site. Many rooms have their own lakeside the general air of fabulousness that hangs terraces or gardens. The gentle glamour over it. But Comascans, as they are called, Details Room-only doubles from will tell you that the chicest bit has always A bedroom at the villa £509 (grandhoteltremezzo.com) of the boutique been the left bank. Need to On a map the lake looks like an armless know runner: her head tilting back towards hotel Villa Lario Venice; her legs sprinting towards Switzer- land. South is Milan and 2km from her makes it the place front toe is the Swiss border, making this Matthew Bell was a the most convenient of hideaways. Como guest of Villa Lario, to enjoy the water, is the longest lake in Europe — and the which has B&B doubles deepest. But these topographical trophies from £426 (villalario.com) says Matthew Bell are the least dazzling features of this glam- and Mandarin Oriental, orous playground, where the palazzi of the which has B&B hat does a day in world’s super-rich (and private) huddle on doubles from £515 the life of George the shore like wasps round a jam jar. (mandarinoriental.com). Clooney look like? The lake’s real name is Lario, given by Fly to Milan The answer, I Julius Caesar when he made camp here in realise as I stand 49BC. But since the town of Como at the gazing across Lake southern tip is the point of access for most Como in a white visitors, that name has stuck. Running the towelling robe, waiting for the Nespresso length of the left bank is the Via Regina, 5 miles east shore is having a moment, with the glass box at the back, plus a bar of W D machine to gurgle its last, is this: a sweep built by the Romans to connect the Po N advantage that it basks in the evening glass and steel; it looks so chic that you LA of glassy green water; the chug of a sea- Valley with the Rhine. At Cernob- R rays. So there’s Villa Lario and, further can’t imagine anyone getting drunk here. E LAKE The Villa d’Este plane overhead; a Riva speedboat putter- bio is Villa d’Este, built for a Z south, at Blevio, a new Mandarin Although there are 18 rooms, the T COMO One of the first luxury hotels I ing towards the jetty to whisk us away. cardinal and turned into the Oriental. The disadvantage of the gardens are sprawling — so even when the to open on Como, in 1873, the It’s important to get Clooney out of the lake’s first grand hotel — during W eastern side is the road, a narrow hotel is full you will never have to fight for S ITALY Bellellagioellella Villa Lario is rare for Lake Como, being owner — Silvio Berlusconi, the Saudi Amal and George Clooney The present villa is no oil painting, Villa d’Este was the epitome way when talking about Como. Since he a dinner here in 1948 the Count- single lane that is jam-packed in a sunlounger. It was this sense of space that of 20th-century glamour, with bought Villa Oleandra for £10 million in ess Bellentani shot dead her summer — when the Lombardismall anddrew intimate its present but owner with to the five-star property royalsix family, Richard Branson, the Leba- having been built in a heavy baronial style Villa Lezzeno 2001 he has been the lake’s biggest land- lover with her husband’s pistol. family built Villa Lario on amenities.a spit years The ago. bigger When hotels Flore are Pilzer full first of sawnese prime minister. The biggest monster in 1904. But it is wonderful to look out of, everyone from Rita Hayworth OleandraOlleanlea Floridians who install themselves on of all? The Lariosaurus that lives at the with a view of the Versace villa and the to Ari Onassis checking in. mark — the paparazzi attention was so A little further north is Villa Villa Lario between two caves in 1890 there Lario it was derelict, but undaunted she intense that in 2015 it was made illegal to Pizzo, a perfect pink box in 25 was no road. the sameand lounger her husband every year.bought Villa it and Lario set aboutbottom of the lake, says Mattia — so mountains beyond. As you would expect Built in 1568 for a cardinal, it be within 100m of his house. But if you’re acres of gardens, and further Riva The palazzo is small by Comooffers a gutting gentler it. induction In the interim to this they world createddeep, at 400m, that nobody has ever been the level of luxury is high enough to meet has since expanded, now incorporating two huge palazzi. staying at Villa Lario, as we are, you could still, on a promontory, is the Villa CernobbioCer obbioobbbb standards but has a convincingof air glamour. of a separate ten-bedroom hotel anddown there. the demands of even the most exacting be forgiven for thinking about Clooney, Balbianello, with its turrets, topiary Blevio grandeur. In a ground-floor loggia youWhereverrestaurant you’re higher staying up the you cliff, quickly and addedMy favourite story is that of Villa soprano. The biggest spa complex in Popular with Americans, who since this new boutique hotel is opposite and wisteria-clad loggia. Como can kick back with a martini and indulgelearn thata everythingjaw-dropping looks infinity better pool. from Open the forRoccabruna a in Blevio. The original house Como? Tick. Gold taps? Tick. A swimming appreciate its old-world charms, his place, on the “less fashionable” side of These are the grand old sites of Como in some Clooney spotting. This floorstern has of afew Riva, years which these you have hire been from drawing Erio ravewas built in 1797 for Madame Ribier, who pool floating on the lake that, even as the 152 rooms and suites have Milan the lake. It seems absurd to say that there that have the benefit of catching the been extended by the Milanese architectMatteri, thereviews king — of Como.the restaurant His boatyard for its atgastron-made her fortune dressing Milanese snowflakes are coating the mountains, plenty of gilt and swagging, is a “less smart” part of Lake Como, given morning sun. But fashions change, and the Pietro Castagna, who added a signatureLezzeno omy;has 40 the of hotel these for 1950s its stylish speedboats interiors. ladies (and, it is said, entertaining is heated to an agreeable temperature? and bathrooms as big as the in a hangar — each one lifted from the their husbands). It was bought by Tick, tick, tick. All it needs bedrooms. Topiaried gardens

water by its hoist, ready to be ploppedPRINTED back AND DISTRIBUTEDGiuditta BY PRESSREADER Pasta, a soprano who now is the American clientele who lead to vegetable patches and PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604 at a moment’s notice. ORIGINAL COPY . ORIGINAL COPY . ORIGINAL COPY . ORIGINALwanted COPY . ORIGINAL COPY . ORIGINAL a COPYhouse as grand as La Scala traditionally make up half of all tennis courts; admire them from COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW A tousle-haired youth called Mattia is in which to practise her arias. The visitors to Como. the unbeatable waterside terrace, our driver (his name means “gift of the sound of her voice would carry Is it possible to enjoy the lake as a martini in hand. Gods”), and we do our best to clamber in across the lake, enchanting mere mortal? The answer to that is Details B&B doubles from with style as he moors. Because of Covid Vincenzo Bellini, whose white yes, if you visit Bellagio, a genteel £685 (villadeste.com) restrictions ours is the first pleasure boat pedimented villa you can see across town at the top of Como’s inside leg allowed on the lake this year, granted the water. The story goes that he fell that looks like the set of a Wes Ander- Il Sereno special dispensation by the police for the madly in love and composed the son film. A 19th-century promenade Unlike any other building on the purposes of journalistic investigation. My operas Norma and La sonnambula leads to a jumble of faded belle époque lake (except perhaps the Saudi hard-hitting questions go like this: “Ooh, about her. What Mr Pasta had to hotels with names like Metropole and royal family’s villa next door), the whose house is that?” Mattia has all the say about this history does not Splendide. At the tobacconist I buy ten Sereno is a modernist Bond villain answers. “That’s the Versace palace, record, but Villa Roda, as it was then postcards, each with a different painting brute — a stack of concrete and though in fact Donatella sold it after known, hosted some of the great names from Como’s 19th-century tourist board — glass. The look is clean and urban, Gianni was murdered, I think to a Rus- of the 19th century, including Donizetti the men wear straw boaters and smoke with floor-to-ceiling windows and sian.” We putter around a bit more, Mattia and Stendhal. cheroots; the ladies are shrouded in lace, a resolutely neutral palette. The telling us the legends of each villa and its Fast-forward to the 21st century and the waving handkerchiefs from the deck of a Michelin-starred restaurant is as house had fallen into dereliction. It was steamship. There is a car ferry from minimalist and up-to-the-minute bought by a local lawyer, who turned it Bellagio to the even less fashionable as you would expect, and offers into the Hotel CastaDiva. The Mandarin parts of the lake in the north (£7.50 one a seven-course vegetarian tasting Oriental group then snapped it up and, way), while the passenger boats between menu. The impressive wine cellar after a lightning refit, opened it in 2019, Cernobbio and Blevio cost £2 for a single. has bottles from each of Italy’s Villa Lario is rare for enjoying only one full season before Covid So no, you don’t have to be Clooney 20 regions. Saluti! Como — intimate but arrived, so its reopening on April 15 was a to enjoy Como, nor is it compulsory Details B&B doubles from moment of great excitement, with staff to travel by Riva, but it’s just jolly nice if £1,122 (serenohotels.com) with five-star amenities applauding as the first guests walked in. you do.

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