We had seen so many pictures of this garden on Lake Maggiore that we had earlier decided not to visit if we were short of time. However, being short of energy on our last day here we opted for this as an easy option. Just five mins to the ferry and five mins on the ferry and we were arriving at the island we had ferried happily past the day before. Read More…
Walking above Lake Como today on the hunt for something new. It’s becoming hard to find something new now-we’ve almost exhausted the supply of alpine plants that I can find in flower. We’ve been so lucky. Today brought forth just one flower on a tiny Dianthus I had been waiting for…. Read More…
We took the passenger ferry over from Varenna (10 mins) to see Villa Melzi despite the threatening rain and were so pleased we did. The garden is stunning, even on a rainy day. Wonderful huge, magnificent trees set in broad sweeping lawns with banks of Rhododendron and Azaleas. Very lush woodland plantings and incredible views over to the other side of the Lake. There’s quite a wide range of plants here with a lovely gully full of tree ferns, huge plantings of Hosta etc.
Villa Melzi is just a few hundred yards by foot out of the village of Bellagio, so very easy access from the ferry.
The Villa itself is not open.
We reached the top half of Lake Como and stayed four nights in Varenna which is perfectly sited for catching the ferries to Bellagio and Menaggio which everyone has to visit at least once. Varenna is noted as vying for the prettiest town in this area with Bellagio. I chose Varenna as we had a car and could travel north or south without having to ferry.
