Luxury on Lake Como
Lake Como is pretty much unanimously considered the most beautiful of the Italian Lakes. Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore may be bigger but Lake Como is surely the most impressive. It?s the deepest lake in Europe and is an enchanting and truly restorative setting for a vacation. It?s where the Duke of Windsor holidayed with Mrs. Simpson, where Verdi wrote La Traviata and where Mussolini was executed trying to escape to Switzerland two days before Hitler poisoned himself when the game was finally up. George Clooney has a villa at Laglio and hosts of celebrities are drawn like moths to this visual and sensual delight.

And it?s all about the aristocratic villas and hotels and their elegant gardens. Each of you will have your favourite. Posh Milanese families vie for grandeur and style on this lake rather like New Yorkers with the Hamptons. The hotels and villas have different colours and shapes. There are yellows and greens with canopies and umbrellas or muted pink and terracotta with grey shutters. And their wonderful proportions blend into a pleasing harmonious row. It?s almost as though sometimes they are in communion with each other across the water. I certainly felt that with the hotels of Tremezzo and Serbelloni and their respective villas of Carlotta and Melzi.
As for the gardens, my favourite, and the most famous, is in Bellagio set in the Villa Melzi. It has just the right level of human adaptation. Yes it?s well-kept and tailored but it manages to k...