Lake Como B&Bs

We stayed at Hotel Meridiana in Bellano and loved it. The hotel is right on the water and out rooms had water lapping just outside the balcony. A wonderful hotel, but I know it's not in your list of cities.

There's a train station and ferry stop, so it's easy to get around the lake by land or water. I'm not sure about buses to Switzerland.

I was there with family and we split up for a day - a few of us toured the lake by boat (and coach and train when our ferry never showed and we were stuck on the other side of the lake!), hiking between villages, and some of our group drove to St Moritz. I was in the lake crew, so I'm not sure how the drive to St Moritz was but they were able to do it in one day.

We already had a rental car and it was very useful around Lake Como, but it is possible to explore the lake without a car. If you rent a car to drive to St Moritz, be sure your rental agreement/insurance won't be voided by driving out of Italy and into Switzerland.

Keep in mind if you stay in Bellagio, you're right in the crook of Lake Como. You'd have to take a ferry to get to a bus to Switzerland.

Cernobbio is much further south on the lake, but could potentially provide better coaches from Como city.

It looks like there are coaches from the very top of the lake (Sorico) to St Moritz but I'm not sure if it's possible to do that as a day trip. The buses from Sorico are about 2.5 hours each way.

Whatever your choose, have a great time at Lake Como. It's beautiful!

We have stayed in both Bellagio and across the lake in Lenno. We enjoyed our hotel right on the lake in Lenno, less touristy and you can take the water ferries to all the towns. I think there is so much to do on the lake that I would not try for St. Moritz in a day and just focus on towns on the lake and places like Villa Balbinaello (used in Star Wars), Villa Carlotta ( used for the file A Month at the Lake), and hike up in the hills above Lenno there a Greenway that goes through small villages and hikes up in the hills that is very nice to do.

Trains run along the east side of the lake, such as from Varenna to St. Moritz with a connection at Tirano (under 4 hours). See schedules through DB, SBB, or Trenitalia sites. Departures every 2 hours on that schedule, alternating with a version that has an additional connection.

You can take local bus C12 (1 hour) from Menaggio to Lugano; I don't know the date of this schedule PDF: http://menaggio.com/ita/e-lakes/Orari_bus.pdf.

The Lugano-St. Moritz bus 631 also stops once daily at 12:55 in Mennaggio on Via Mazzinni and takes 3 hours from there to St. Moritz. (Before June 10, it runs weekends only.)

Take the cooking class at Restaurant Il Caminetto - they will pick you up from the ferry dock in Varenna

Ride the ferry over to Bellagio.

One day, take the ferry over to Menaggio, take the bus to Lugano, take the train to Como, and then ride the hydrofoil back in to Varenna. Perfect day !