Please sign in to post.

Lake Como in early November - thoughts?

Due to some work conflicts, our planned Italy trip for early to mid-October has now been pushed to early November. Lake Como is still on our planned itinerary at present; however, I understand a lot of the hotels close down at the end of October/early November.

Is it foolish to still plan to go at this time (Nov 5-8th)? Will restaurants still be open? Your thoughts/feedback would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

Kind Regards,

Lisa

Posted by
395 posts

We are staying in Varenna in early March.
So, not in season.
We found an AirBnB from this father/son team — https://www.varennahorizons.com
They have been very helpful via email questions/answers.

Send me a PM in April and I will tell you about our experience with them.

Posted by
1626 posts

We’ve lived here on Maggiore for two years and seems that the end of October and early November are very rainy, damp, and in the 50s. Also ferries will be running on offseason schedules. And some tourist destinations close for the winter.

Posted by
30 posts

Thank you both for your feedback! Due to having to push the Como trip back another week, I think our best bet is to do a private full day excursion to Como/Bellagio/Varenna from Milan. I have reached to my planned hotel in Bellagio (whom close down on Nov 8th for the season) and they told me not much would be open.

Posted by
847 posts

I think your plan to visit as a day trip from Milan is a good one. I was in the region a few years ago in mid March and chose to stay in Milan for several days so I could choose the good weather day to do the day trip. It's only an hour from Milan to Varenna by train so makes a nice day trip. I got lucky and got several nice days so I also did a day trip another day to Lugano.

Here's my report and photos - https://andiamo.zenfolio.com/blog/2017/5/march-in-northern-italy-milan-genoa-lake-como-lake-lugano-pavia

Posted by
30 posts

@ Isabel - Thanks for your insight and your lovely blog post! Those pictures are to die for. Can't wait to go back in November!

Thanks again,

Lisa