The ethereal scenery and calm indigo water of Italy's Alpine lakes — Maggiore, Como and Garda — have had an irresistible appeal since Roman times, when aristocrats and artists began summering on their shores. Author and lawmaker Pliny the Younger wrote ecstatically of his view of Como, while the poet Catullus lived in his family’s villa at Sirmione on Lake Garda. Eighteen hundred years later, the British Romantic poets, chiefly Byron and Shelley, put the lakes on the map as a mandatory part of the Grand Tour. (Shelley wrote of Como, “This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty ... and has the appearance of a mighty river winding among the mountains and the forests.”)
Each generation falls in love all over again: Ernest Hemingway was besotted with Lake Maggiore; today, George Clooney has a villa in Laglio on Lake Como, keeping the region’s glamour current. Every time I visit the lakes, I conclude that few places are more beautiful or more profoundly civilized. It is a recurring and undiminished pleasure to visit the exquisite gardens and villas; to sail aboard the ferries that enable an easygoing, car-free day; and, each evening, to settle into one of the area’s superb hotels.
The lakes provide a perfect time-out during a tour of Italy — being less than an hour from Milan and about three hours from Venice — but I regard them as a destination in their own right. On a recent trip, we picked up a car at the Verona airport and drove for 50 miles through countryside pink and white with blossom to Salò, a resort town on the western shore of Lake Garda. Although the nearby Grand Hotel à Villa Feltrinelli in Gargnano has long been one of my favorite Italian hotels, it has become extremely expensive — something that doesn’t seem to trouble its increasingly Russian clientele — so it was in the hopes of finding a charming and comfortable place with good service and more sensible rates that we arrived at the 18-room Villa Arcadio.
Occupying a stone convent, which dates to the 14th century, the hotel is surrounded by 27 acres of orchards and olive groves
Occupying a stone convent, much of which dates to the 14th century, the hotel is surrounded by 27 acres of orchards and olive groves, and is perched on a hillside that affords panoramic views of the lake. It was originally bought by an Italian-Finnish couple, who had intended to make it their holiday home, it into a hotel instead. The property opened two years ago, and today, it is a place of tremendous charm, with exposed stone walls, whitewashed beams, beige stone floors, wheat-colored linen upholstery and a stylish mix of traditional and contemporary art and furniture. Our air-conditioned lakeview Junior Suite came with an extremely comfortable bed, fine linens and a smallish modern bath, stocked with Erbario Toscano olive-oil toiletries. Overall, the suite’s simple design scheme and neutral colors served to emphasize original features such as massive beams, terra-cotta floors and 600-year-old frescoes.
The hotel’s excellent (and reasonably priced) restaurant comprises two elegant rooms with vaulted ceilings and marble fireplaces, which extend onto a sublime terrace where wrought-iron tables are tucked amid vine arbors. I particularly enjoyed the house-made ravioli stuffed with Bagoss cheese, made from the skimmed milk of the cows that graze the alpine pastures around nearby Bagolino. Lake fish such as pike are frequently to be found on the menu, and the wine list features local wines that include enjoyable light reds such as Groppello and Bardolino. Cooking classes are available on request. Amenities include a fitness area with a Finnish sauna, plus a menu of massage and yoga. The hotel has a classic mahogany Riva Aquarama Special speedboat for picnics and full- or half-day trips. (Lake Garda is 32 miles long, so it presents many opportunities for exploration. However, it is the most popular of the Italian lakes with domestic tourists, so is best visited in the shoulder seasons of May-June and September-October. The south of the lake becomes particularly crowded with pleasure boaters from Brescia.)
AT A GLANCE:
LIKE: Charming staff; simple but very comfortable rooms; lovely location; very good restaurant.
DISLIKE: The absence of a proper lobby and a spacious sitting room.
GOOD TO KNOW: This intimate hotel, popular with affluent English and German couples, is a delightful and well-run country auberge, not a luxury hotel.
VILLA ARCADIO, Rating 90. Deluxe Double, $395. Via Palazzina 2, 25087, Salo. Tel. (39) 0365-42281.
The following day, we headed west to Lake Como, a 100 mile, two-hour drive. My hope was that our next stop, the 97-room Grand Hotel Tremezzo, would be just as delightful, and might also provide an alternative to the eye-watering prices of Como’s famous Villa d’Este. The 1910-vintage Tremezzo is built on a steep lakeside plot, so on our arrival, a brigade of porters ushered us to the elevator that takes guests up three floors to reception. Service at the front desk was charming and efficient despite the recent arrival of a wedding party, and we were promptly escorted to the new, fifth-floor all-suite “hotel within a hotel.”
Unlike the opulent period décor elsewhere, these Rooftop Suites display a refined contemporary design by architect Venelli Kramer, featuring dark- stained pine floors, putty-colored walls, and a clever mix of modern and traditional furnishings. Our suite comprised a sitting room with sofa and armchair, and a white marble-topped table. A library wall unit in walnut veneer housed a flat-screen television and a Loewe sound system — I never figured out how to work the latter, despite the assistance of two hotel technicians who were similarly baffled by its complexity — plus a selection of sumptuous art books. Two heavy pocket doors closed off the bedroom. The bath was rather small, but was well- designed, faced in cocoa-colored travertine and fitted with a whirlpool tub and a stall shower. The best feature of our suite, however, was a huge private terrace with a Jacuzzi, two sun loungers and a table and chairs. It had a spectacular view over the lake and was completely private, thanks to a screen of bamboo and a thick frosted-glass wall.
The hotel’s grand and vibrantly colored public areas included a handsome billiards room, a huge lounge and an excellent bar with a cocktail list that included notable grappas. The main La Terrazza Restaurant offers sublime views of the lake and the town of Bellagio directly opposite, but we found the menu to be overcomplicated and head-spinningly expensive. (It is overseen by 83-year-old Gualtiero Marchesi, widely considered to be the founder of modern Italian cuisine, but a chef whose culinary influence is on the wane.) Oddly, the hotel’s casual restaurant is a fondue-and-raclette wine tavern, which would be fine for a single meal in winter, but is of limited appeal during the summer season. Other facilities included three swimming pools, a floodlit clay tennis court and a well-equipped fitness room. An impressive spa offers treatments by ESPA and has a spectacular 50-foot indoor infinity pool that appears to merge with the waters of the lake. Adjustable water jets enable powerful swimmers to forge against a current. And there are also five kinds of Jacuzzi, including one on the lakefront specifically for hydromassage. Golf is available at the well-regarded Menaggio & Cadenabbia Golf Club just three miles away. Water skiing, sailing and windsurfing on the lake can readily be arranged.
AT A GLANCE:
LIKE: Exceptionally attentive and thoughtful staff; beautiful views over the lake from very comfortable rooms; terrific bar with excellent list of grappas; first-rate spa with indoor pool.
DISLIKE: The restaurants: It needs a really excellent trattoria.
GOOD TO KNOW: Almost every ferry on Lake Como stops on one of the landings adjacent to the hotel, which means it’s easy to sightsee without a car.
GRAND HOTEL TREMEZZO, Rating 95. Lake View Deluxe Room, $780; Rooftop Junior Suite, $995. Via Regina 8, 22019 Tremezzo. Tel. (39) 0344-42491.
After a morning visit to the enchanting gardens of the 17th-century Villa Carlotta next door — famous for its azaleas, camellias and rhododen- drons, as well as for massive century-old cedars and sequoias — we retrieved our car and left the Grand Hotel Tremezzo with real regret. Heading south down the western shore of the lake, we stopped for lunch at a favorite local restaurant, the idyllic Crotto dei Platani in Brienno, and feasted on lavaret (whitefish) served with black truffles from the Umbrian hill town of Norcia. (There are four blissful dining venues, our favorite being the Terrace, where 20 tables surrounded by hedges of fragrant white jasmine directly overlook Como’s glassy surface.) We arrived at the 12-room Relais Villa Vittoria in Laglio by late afternoon. An intimate peach-colored mansion, it was constructed in the 18th century by a wealthy family from Milan. Truth be told, after our stay at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, we feared we might be underwhelmed by this much simpler property. Instead, we fell in love on arrival. A friendly young woman brought us to our air-conditioned lakeview junior suite, a spacious two-room aerie with pine floors, washed stucco walls, a beamed ceiling and comfortable contemporary furniture. A small Juliet balcony with a table and two metal chairs overlooked the lake and a pool in the gardens below. The well-lit bedroom came with a very comfortable four-poster bed dressed with fine Italian linens, while the separate salon was equally attractive and provided a white cotton-upholstered couch. The bath was equipped with a serviceable tub-shower combination, a reminder that this otherwise very agreeable hotel is a four- rather than a five-star property.
The service proved attentive and exceptionally charming throughout our stay.
Facilities include a diminutive spa with a Jacuzzi and Turkish bath, a small lakeside infinity pool, a spacious lounge with a grand piano, and an intimate restaurant serving dishes such as leek and Parmesan risotto, lake perch stuffed with vegetables and bacon, and escalope of pork cooked with Marsala and served with butter-glazed apples and a mustard sauce. The service proved attentive and exceptionally charming throughout our stay. Given the vertiginous prices at most luxury hotels on Lake Como, the Relais Villa Vittoria’s rooms represent exceptional value for the money at about €350 ($460) a night.
AT A GLANCE:
LIKE: The intimacy and calm here make it genuinely but unself- consciously romantic; junior suites are exceptionally spacious.
DISLIKE: Breakfast buffet is lack-luster; suites would be better with separate tubs and showers instead of combined units.
GOOD TO KNOW: The best nearby restaurant is the Crotto dei Platani.
RELAIS VILLA VITTORIA, Rating 92. Lake View Suite, $645. Via Regina 62, 22010 Laglio. Tel. (39) 031-400859.
From Laglio, it was a pleasant 90-minute drive along back roads to Stresa, on the western shore of Lake Maggiore. Blessed with the same balmy microclimate as Garda and Como, Maggiore is distinguished by a more subdued and genteel atmosphere, a reflection of the fact that the Northern Italian aristocracy and industrialists from Turin and Milan have been building extravagant villas along its shores for centuries. Our destination was the 172- room Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees, a property that was once a great favorite of Ernest Hemingway and that features in “A Farewell to Arms.” (The writer’s preferred room, now known as the Suite Hemingway, can be yours for a mere €3,300 a night!)
This opulent grande dame, set in exquisitely manicured grounds, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, and is one of the increasingly few places where you can still experience the spirit of patrician 19th-century European travel. As the small exhibit next to the card room on the ground floor indicates, this was once a place where the rich and titled came to stay for weeks at a time, rather than just a night or two. However, the grandeur of a hotel’s décor does not alone suffice. A hotel that struts its pedigree and famous guests as proudly as this one does must also have gracious and attentive service and an abundance of Old World charm. Alas, this was not always the case during our stay. The staff tended to be polite but somewhat distant and impersonal.
Upstairs, our junior suite featured a lavish array of brocade, velvet and ormolu and came with a delightful small balcony from which to enjoy a fine view of the Borromean Islands. The bath was faced with multicolored marble and equipped with a whirlpool tub. Hotel facilities include two large outdoor swimming pools, a grass tennis court and a spa with an indoor pool, sauna, massage and an elaborate menu of beauty treatments. The main Borromeo Restaurant offers standard Italian fare in an opulent setting, but the menu provides little of conspicuous interest. Overall, the Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees is well-maintained, and its historic atmosphere is undeniably seductive. It certainly provides an acceptable base for a night or two while visiting the exquisite Borromean Islands. My hope, however, is that someone will soon open a hotel on Maggiore that is as delightful as those on Como and Garda, since this will give me a valid excuse to visit the Italian lakes yet again.
AT A GLANCE:
LIKE: Magnificently landscaped park and gardens on Lake Maggiore; beautiful public rooms.
DISLIKE: Desultory service; charge for in-room Internet access.
GOOD TO KNOW: Private water taxis can be arranged from the hotel’s jetty to the Borromean Islands; many restaurants, including the excellent Casabella on Isola dei Pescatori, will send a boat to pick you up.
GRAND HOTEL DES ILES BORROMEES, Rating 87. Lake View Double, $630; Junior Suite Deluxe, $1,130. Corso Umberto I 67, Stresa. Tel. TEL. (39) 0323-938938.
Illustrations © Melissa Colson.
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