There are perhaps half a dozen lakes in the world where a hotel can carry a guest list spanning Queen Caroline of Brunswick, Mark Twain, Greta Garbo, and a contemporary cohort of Hollywood residents — and Lake Como is one of them. The lake’s hotels are not merely places to sleep. They are continuous works of cultural archaeology, layered across two centuries of European leisure, restored and re-restored by successive generations, each one carrying its own particular thesis about what arrival on Lake Como should feel like.
Seven properties anchor the lake’s reputation. Six are storied to the point of legend; the seventh, newly arrived, is making its own case. Walking from one to the next — by Riva, by ferry, by the slow road that winds along the western shore — is to walk through the entire history of European hospitality as it has been understood since 1873.
Villa d’Este, Cernobbio
The lake’s defining property, and arguably one of the three or four most important hotels in Europe. The original villa was built in 1568 for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio; the Queen’s Pavilion was added in the nineteenth century for Caroline of Brunswick; the hotel itself opened in 1873 and has been welcoming guests continuously since. The mosaic nymphaeum in the gardens, the famous floating swimming pool that extends into the lake, the lakeside terrace where Edith Wharton wrote, the Veranda restaurant, the casual Grill where George and Amal Clooney dine when in residence — every element has accumulated its own anecdotal weight. What distinguishes Villa d’Este is its principled refusal to modernise out of recognition. Returning guests find the property exactly as they remember it. That, in a category obsessed with reinvention, is the most luxurious gesture of all. Visit Villa d’Este.
Passalacqua, Moltrasio
The newest of the lake’s grandes dames — opened in 2022 after a five-year restoration of an eighteenth-century neoclassical villa once owned by Vincenzo Bellini’s patron — and already, by widespread critical consensus, one of the finest hotels in the world. Passalacqua’s De Santis family, who also operate Grand Hotel Tremezzo, undertook the restoration without commercial constraints. There are only twenty-four suites. The frescoed ceilings have been brought back by hand. The terraced gardens descend in three tiers to the lake. The library, the music room, the private chapel — none of these read as hotel amenities; they read as the rooms of a private house briefly opened to discerning visitors. In 2023, Passalacqua was named the world’s best hotel by the 50 Best Hotels list. Visit Passalacqua.
Grand Hotel Tremezzo, Tremezzina
Opened in 1910 at the height of the Belle Époque and continuously operated by the De Santis family since 1975, Grand Hotel Tremezzo is the most photogenic property on the lake — the pink-stucco façade against the water, the floating pool overlooking Bellagio, the parquet floors and antique furnishings restored over decades rather than redecorated. Greta Garbo was a frequent guest. The T Bar Terrace, elevated above the lakeside road, is one of the lake’s most celebrated aperitivo settings. The property also manages Villa Sola Cabiati, an eighteenth-century historic villa available as a private rental — a level of access to genuinely historic Lake Como property that few hotels can match. Visit Grand Hotel Tremezzo.
Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio
The presiding hotel of Bellagio — the village at the lake’s central tip, where the western and eastern arms diverge — and a property whose history runs continuously since 1873. Originally a noble residence belonging to the Serbelloni dukes, the hotel preserves frescoed ceilings, marble staircases, and the kind of Belle Époque ballrooms that have largely disappeared from European hospitality. The Mistral restaurant holds a Michelin star; the lakefront pool offers what is arguably the finest position on the lake; and the Rockefeller Foundation’s adjacent Bellagio Center, where scholars and policymakers convene, lends the property a distinctly intellectual atmosphere. For travellers who want Bellagio at its most classical, this is the address. Visit Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni.
Mandarin Oriental Lago di Como, Blevio
Set within the lakeside Villa Roccabruna estate — once home to the celebrated nineteenth-century opera singer Giuditta Pasta — Mandarin Oriental opened on the eastern shore in 2019 and has rapidly established itself as the lake’s most quietly sophisticated contemporary option. Seventy-five rooms and suites across a series of buildings within a subtropical garden setting. The hotel’s spa programme is built around what the brand calls the Power of Water — a wellness philosophy specific to the property. The waterfront restaurant L’ARIA serves Italian cuisine with subtle Japanese influence. For guests who find the historic grand hotels too theatrical, Mandarin Oriental offers a more restrained register without sacrificing any of the lake-facing glamour. Visit Mandarin Oriental Lago di Como.
Villa Balbiano, Ossuccio
Not a hotel in the conventional sense but a private villa rental of the highest order — and the most distinctive accommodation on the lake. The sixteenth-century property, originally built for Cardinal Tolomeo Gallio (the same patron behind Villa d’Este) and later expanded by the Giovio family, has been restored as a fully staffed historic estate available for exclusive use. Six bedrooms, gilded salons, frescoed ceilings, formal gardens descending to a private mooring. The villa was used as a primary filming location in the 2021 House of Gucci. For families, wedding parties, or groups seeking the experience of arriving at a Lake Como villa as the family did in the eighteenth century — with staff, with privacy, with the entire property at one’s disposal — there is no comparable proposition. Visit Villa Balbiano.
The Lake Como EDITION, Cadenabbia
The newest arrival, and the only contemporary property in our seven. Opened in March 2026 within a restored nineteenth-century palazzo on the western shore, The Lake Como EDITION represents Ian Schrager’s design-led approach applied to the most classical of Italian settings. Forty-five rooms, a floating pool extending over the lake itself, and a culinary programme led by Mauro Colagreco, the Argentine-Italian chef whose Mirazur on the Côte d’Azur has held three Michelin stars and was named the World’s Best Restaurant. The EDITION represents a different proposition from the lake’s heritage properties — younger in mood, more architecturally restrained, more design-forward — and for the guest who has experienced the grand hotels and seeks a contemporary counterpoint, the property answers a question the lake had not previously asked. For more on the property’s restoration and Colagreco’s culinary direction, read our full feature on The Lake Como EDITION. Visit The Lake Como EDITION.
What unites them
What distinguishes these seven properties from the broader Lake Como hotel landscape — and there are now over a hundred properties on the lake — is the consistency of their relationship with the water itself. Each was built with the lake as its primary orientation: the rooms face the water, the terraces extend toward the water, the gardens descend to the water, the most important meals are served in sight of the water. This is not architectural accident. It reflects a particular European understanding, refined over two centuries, that the experience of Lake Como is the experience of being on it — of waking with the water as one’s first sight, of dining with it as a continuous backdrop, of returning to it each evening as the light shifts across Bellagio. The grand hotels of Lake Como understand this with a precision that newer arrivals are still learning. To stay at any of these seven properties is to participate in a tradition older than the modern hotel itself: the tradition of arriving by water, and of living, however briefly, by it.
Source of the image: Villa d’Este
