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Stay in Varenna, Bellagio, or?

Next summer (late June--early July), as part of our Italy trip, we want to spend 5 or 6 days on Lake Como and we're not sure which city to use as our base. Here are our criteria in no special order:

- Since we will not have a car and are traveling by train from Bolzano, we will need a town easily accessible to the train station.
- We want to explore other lakeside communities so good ferry connections are important.
- a variety of restaurants to choose from.
- possibly a town that offers some activities we can sign up for (like cooking classes, guided tours, etc.)
- We love small towns but it should be big enough to offer enough lodging to choose from.

We are both in our mid '70s and in reasonably good shape but want to avoid extremely long hikes to see things.
We were in Varenna on a Rick Steves tour many years ago and stayed in Varenna which was beautiful but are open to other possibilities.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Posted by
15832 posts

Varenna, Bellagio, Managgio are all quaint and easily accessible by ferry. Those 3 Midlake towns have the most ferry options since they are served by the midlake shuttle ferry. To go by train you would go to Varenna, then if you don’t want to stay in Varenna again, you can easily go to the other two in minutes by ferry. They are probably the most visited, so there are restaurant options in all of them.

Posted by
1747 posts

Menaggio, Bellagio and Varenna are centrally located on Lake Como and have frequent ferry connections to each other. Are you still interested in an Agriturismo as you wrote in your previous post?

Posted by
178 posts

I've made some decisions since this and my previous post. We are going to stay in Varenna. It sounds like a better fit for our needs and interests. We hope to stay at Hotel du Lac.

Thanks for your advice.