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Como lake in Italy, Lake Como

Italy · Europe du Sud

Lake Como

An Alpine lake of villa gardens, busiest each May for the Concorso d'Eleganza.

Une page de destination est organisée autour du temps : quand le lieu est incontournable, quels événements le rendent tel, et comment il évolue au fil de l'année — puis la géographie pratique (aéroports, marinas, quartiers, zones hôtelières).

Lake Como is a glacial lake in Lombardy, shaped like an inverted Y and covering 146 square kilometers, with a maximum depth beyond 400 meters that makes its basin one of the deepest in Europe, its floor lying over 200 meters below sea level. Roman and later aristocratic settlement built the lake's shoreline as a place for villas rather than working towns, a pattern that continued through the Renaissance and accelerated in the nineteenth century, when European aristocracy and, later, industrialists built or restored the string of lakeside estates, Villa d'Este, Villa Erba, Villa Carlotta, Villa del Balbianello, Villa Melzi, that still define the shoreline and now function variously as hotels, museums and event venues.

The lake's one fixture on the international calendar is the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, a historic-car judging weekend held each May in the grounds of the Grand Hotel Villa d'Este at Cernobbio, with a public day at the neighboring Villa Erba. Outside that weekend, the lake runs on the rhythm of an Italian resort area: ferries connecting Como, Bellagio, Varenna and the smaller towns, a walking and boating culture built around the shoreline, and a season that runs roughly from Easter to October.

01Quand Lake Como matières

Douze mois d'activité calculés à partir des événements figurant au calendrier de cette destination — l'importance de chaque événement est répartie sur les jours qu'il occupe. Les événements à l'origine de chaque mois sont indiqués en regard de la barre.

Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este · May
Lake Como Monte San Primo, 1682 m high, is located between the two branches of Como Lake over Bellagio and is the highest mountain in, Lake Como Villa Olmo, Como, Lake Como Villa Carlotta (Tremezzo), on Lake Como, Italy Villa Melzi (Bellagio), on Lake Como, Italy Varenna, Italy, Lake Como

02Le calendrier ici

À venir

Chaque événement du calendrier

1954 Rolls-Royce Phantom IV limousine, chassis 4BP7, built for Princess Margaret with coachwork by H. J. Mulliner & Co., Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este Automobile Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este May 21–23, 2027

S'abonner au calendrier de cette destination (ICS) · Ouvrir dans le calendrier

03Pourquoi c'est important

The Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este holds its place on the automotive calendar for much the same reason the lake itself has drawn visitors for centuries: the setting does work no ordinary showground could. Villa d'Este's gardens, used for judging cars since 1929, are as much the event's subject as the cars themselves.

04L'année, mois par mois

JanvierA quiet winter month around the lake, with many hotels and restaurants in the smaller towns closed for the season.
FévrierStill largely closed for winter, though Como town itself operates normally as a working city independent of the lake's tourist economy.
MarsThe lake's tourist season begins reopening in stages as the weather turns, ahead of the Easter travel period.
AvrilVillas and gardens along the shore reopen for the season, with azaleas and rhododendrons at Villa Carlotta typically near their peak.
MaiThe Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este fills Cernobbio for a weekend in the second half of the month, the lake's single busiest fixture, with a public Sunday at neighboring Villa Erba.
JuinEarly summer brings the lake to its most comfortable stretch of warm days and cool evenings, before the full heat of high summer arrives.
JuilletHigh season is underway, with ferries, hotels and lakeside restaurants at their busiest through the rest of the summer.
AoûtThe peak of the Italian summer holiday period, with the lake full of both international visitors and Italians on their own August break.
SeptembreA favored month among repeat visitors, combining warm water and thinning crowds as the main summer season winds down.
OctobreThe shoulder season continues with mild days, though many seasonal businesses in the smaller towns begin closing for the year.
NovembreMost of the lake's seasonal hotels, restaurants and ferries reduce service or close entirely until spring.
DécembreA quiet winter month, with Como town's own Christmas season the lake's only real seasonal activity.
Tremezzo waterfront of Lake Como, Italy

05Météo par mois

Mois°C max.Bas °CPluie mm
Janvier6-279
Février8-174
Mars134109
Avril177157
Mai2312201
Juin2716175
Juillet3019137
Août2919173
Septembre2313160
Octobre199147
Novembre124127
Décembre9266
 Source: Wikipedia climate table for Como (the city at the lake's southern tip; Cernobbio and Bellagio have no dedicated published series of their own, so this is the nearest available station). Wikipedia's own citations for this table are Weather Atlas (weather-atlas.com/en/italy/como-climate) and a Lugano Airport historical record via weatherspark.com; figures are given in whole degrees only, as published, rather than to a false decimal precision. This is a lake, not the sea, so sea_c is null throughout.. Moyennes à long terme ; une semaine donnée peut différer.

06Comment s'y rendre et se déplacer

AéroportsMilan Malpensa (MXP) · 51 km · commercial — about 41 minutes by road from Como; the main international gateway for the lake.Milan Linate (LIN) · 55 km · commercial — approximate driving distance; mainly domestic and short-haul European routes.Milan Bergamo (Il Caravaggio) (BGY) · 65 km · commercial — approximate driving distance; a low-cost carrier hub east of Como.
MarinasComo and Cernobbio lake landings — the ferry piers (imbarcaderi) used by Navigazione Laghi's passenger services; the lake has no seagoing marina, but hotel-operated jetties along the Cernobbio and Bellagio shorefronts serve private boats.
Se déplacerMilan's three airports each serve the lake by car or train in roughly forty minutes to just over an hour. Ferries operated by Navigazione Laghi connect the lakeside towns; Como has two rail stations, San Giovanni for long-distance and international EuroCity trains and Nord Lago for the Milan commuter line. A car adds flexibility but is not required for the main towns.

07Où se trouvent les choses

Quartiers

Comothe lake's largest town, at the southern tip, with its own historic center, Duomo and silk-industry history.
Cernobbiohome to Villa d'Este and the Concorso d'Eleganza.
Bellagioat the point where the lake's three branches meet, known for its steep lanes and lake views.
Varenna and Menaggiosmaller towns on the lake's eastern and western shores, connected by a cross-lake ferry.

Quartiers d'hôtels

Cernobbio and Bellagio hold the lake's best-known hotels, several of them converted historic villas, and set the tone for the concours weekend's booking pressure. Como town, at the lake's southern tip, offers a larger and more varied hotel stock connected to the rest of Lombardy by rail.

Quartiers gastronomiques

Bellagio's lakefront and Como's old town carry the highest concentration of restaurants, most oriented toward the lake's own tourist season rather than year-round local trade.

Institutions culturelles

Villa Carlottaan eighteenth-century villa at Tremezzo, known for its gardens and azalea collection.
Villa del Balbianelloa terraced-garden villa on a wooded promontory, used as a film location.
Villa Melzi d'Erila landscape park at Bellagio with a chapel and Japanese garden.
Villa d'Estethe sixteenth-century villa at Cernobbio, now a hotel, that hosts the Concorso d'Eleganza in its gardens.

Commerce

Como town remains a center of Italian silk manufacturing, and shops around its old town sell scarves and textiles tied to that industry.

08Comment le lieu évolue

The lake operates on a clear seasonal switch: open and fully staffed from Easter to October, with the Concorso d'Eleganza as its one internationally significant week, and substantially closed through the winter months outside Como town itself.

09Historique

Villa d'Este, built in 1568 for a cardinal and now a hotel, gives the concours its name and its home. The event itself dates to 1929, when it began as a competition for coachbuilt cars judged on the villa's grounds; it lapsed after the Second World War and was revived in 1995, since when it has become one of the automotive concours calendar's fixed points alongside Pebble Beach and Goodwood.

À proximité

Basilica of San Carlo al Corso, Milan Italy Milan Italy's design and fashion capital, busiest for Salone del Mobile and two fashion weeks.

Dans la presse

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Sources

  1. Lake Como, Wikipedia encyclopedia consulté 9 September 2026
  2. Como, Wikipedia encyclopedia consulté 9 September 2026
Confiance: Moyen · Mis à jour 10 September 2026Signaler une erreur sur cette page