Varenna’s unique position on the eastern shore of Lake Como, Italy has afforded the town with fantastic vistas to and from the lake.  On the southern end of Varenna’s lakefront are two quintessential centuries old Villas, both with incredible gardens that also enjoy fantastic vistas to and from the lake, and both of which are […]

Varenna is a very special place on Lake Como, Italy. It is a very small village of 800 located on the central eastern shore of the lake, and, together with sister towns Bellagio and Menaggio on opposite sides of the lake, form a close knit triangle of three of the most beautiful towns on the […]

Menaggio enjoys a fabulous location on the western shore of central Lake Como.  It has a ferry boat dock which means it has easy and quick connections to all the other major towns in the central part of the lake, some of which are Bellagio, Tremezzo, and Varenna.  Additionally, it is the main business center […]

For everyone who is following my blogs on my travels in Italy, I am adding this blog with some general info and maps.  With the maps you can see the cities and towns I am visiting and their geographical relationship to each other and the neighboring European countries.

Here is a collection of some of my sketches of Lake Como from this year’s trip.  I have more that I will be attaching to future blogs.  Hope you enjoy!

     Villa Carlotta is one of the must-see villas on Lago di Como (Lake Como), and one of the few that allow the public to visit and to take photos. The villa and adjacent gardens are a fine example of the Italians’ quest for perfect harmony between building and nature. First constructed in the at […]

I finally made it to what I consider to be the most beautiful villa on earth. This is a place I have seen in several movies: A Month on the Lake (with Vanessa Redgrave and Uma Thurman,1995), Casino Royale (a recent James Bond thriller, 2006), and Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones (specifically […]

Luckily for me, I have a contact in the tiny little village of Livo, Italy. Judith is a fellow American who has lived in Livo for some 20 years, and who was willing to give me the grand tour. I will cover Livo in all its wonderful attributes and more about Judith in a separate […]

For many years now, I have heard from friends and colleagues, and I have read in travel magazines, books, and guidebooks, about places on this earth described as “a little slice of heaven”. I’ve spent a good bit of my travels over the last many years in search of such a place, and to some […]

Bellagio is a real place, a real town, on a real lake in Italy. Known as “The Pearl of the Lake”, Bellagio is definitely one of Lago di Como’s most beautiful villages with several grand villas, a vibrant and often crowded waterfront that goes from arcaded shops and restaurants in yellow and terra cotta hues […]