On the promontory that splits Lake Como in two, where one of the villas of Pliny the Younger is thought to have stood, the first pleasure villa of the Lario was built at the end of the fifteenth century on the ruins of a castle. Leonardo passed through, and Ludovico il Moro, two emperors, Queen Victoria, Manzoni and Silvio Pellico: the guest list is the history of Europe out of order.
What to see
The park covers some twenty hectares and climbs to the point, among terraces, woods and formal gardens. Inside the property the pieces of the castle remain: a chapel within the walls, the apse of an old church with its slit window, and an eleventh-century bell tower swallowed into the wall of the villa, which you can pick out if you look closely.
The paths, almost thirteen kilometres of them, were laid out by duke Serbelloni at the beginning of the nineteenth century, along with a tunnel under the castle, the belvedere with its artificial grottoes and the statue of Pliny set at a crossing. Today the villa belongs to the Rockefeller Foundation, which uses it as a study centre for scholars and artists from all over the world.
Visiting
The villa cannot be visited, being a place of work; the gardens are seen only on guided tours at fixed times, which start from the village of Bellagio and must be booked, with limited numbers and a short season. An hour and a half.
Our editors' tip
Get to the top of the point and look: from there you see both branches of the lake at once, the Como one and the Lecco one, with the mountains behind. It is why this promontory has been lived on since Roman times, and there is no other spot on the Lario where the shape of the lake is so clear.