Como, Bellagio & Varenna: Small Group from Milan with Boat Cruise
Description
Explore the most famous lake of Italy on an entertaining 10-hour guided tour in a very small group of 14 participants. Avoid any tourist traps, crowds & queues on a well-planned trip with a professional local guide. Admire the Alps, film locations & celebrity villas during the lake boat cruise. You will meet your guide in Milan and take together an express train to Como. Join a panoramic ferry cruise ride along the lake and immerse yourself in the lake's famous "golden triangle" section and visit Bellagio & Varenna. Enjoy pre-booked & guaranteed seats during the boat cruise along the lake with priority skip-the-line access to the ferry. Savour a lunch in a lake-view restaurant in Bellagio that your guide will suggest to you. Admire the majestic historical villas of Lake Como during this entertaining day trip. In each village you will enjoy a mix of guided tour and free time. Take the express train back to Milan with your guide. The tour will finish in Milan's Central Station.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Express first class train ride from Milan to Lake Como (Como City)
Como City. Take a walk in Como City with your guide and stop by the Duomo of Como. Como has a long history dated back even before Roman empire, was ruled by multiple Italian, German and Austrian emperors due to its strategic location. Admire the Duomo of Como, the last Gothic Duomo built in Italy and the most important religious site of the city. After that, you will join a stunning boat cruise along the lake that will start in Como City.
Lake Como boat cruise
Admire the Alps, film locations & celebrity villas during the lake boat cruise. Start the lake boat cruise from Como City. Firstly, you will be able to admire Villa Olmo and Villa D'Este. Villa Olmo was constructed after Villa d’Este in 18th century with neoclassic design. Its beauty is complemented with extensive and elegant lake front symmetric gardens, sculptures, fountains and immense English garden in the back.
After Villa Olmo, you will pass near Cernobbio and Villa D'Este, a 15th-century villa, originally called Villa del Garovo. It is a Renaissance patrician residence & a park of approximately 100,000 square meters. Villa D'Este was converted into a luxury hotel for the royal people in 1873 and since then kept the name Villa d'Este because of the apparent connection with the famous Villa d'Este in Tivoli in Rome. In 1925 the famous director Alfred Hitchcock made his movie The Pleasure Garden in this location. In June 2009, it was selected as the best hotel in the world by the Forbes magazine.
Pass by in front of George Clooney's famous Villa Oleandra.
Admire Torno, one of the most charming villages of Lake Como. It hosts Villa Pliniana, which took its name from Pliny the Elder, who was originally in Como. Pliny the Elder was a Roman Empire author, naturalist, natural philosopher, and naval and army commander (in the Roman Empire), and a close friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ''Naturalis Historia'' (Natural History), which became an editorial model for the future encyclopedias.
Used as a location for the movie ''Ocean 12'' with Brad Pitt, George Clooney & Julia Roberts, this famous villa was originally built in late 19th century by Luigi Erba, brother of the prominent Italian businessman Carlo Erba (founder of the Erba pharmaceutical company), to express his grandiosity.
Villa Carlotta is an important villa and a botanical garden in Tremezzo town on the left shore of Lake Como. Today the villa is also a museum, whose collection includes works by various sculptors. The villa was built in the late-seventeenth century by Marquis Giorgio Clerici of Milan.
James Bond Casino Royale & Star Wars film location. Villa del Balbianello is one of the most famous villas of Lake Como and is also an important film location, where such movies as James Bond Casino Royale & Star Wars were filmed. This villa is particularly famous for its elaborate terraced gardens.
Your boat cruise will end in Bellagio, the jewel of Lake Como. You will immerse yourself in the lake's famous "golden triangle" section, known for its remarkable villas, and breathtaking villages. Discover quaint boutiques with local art and stop by a lakeside restaurant to enjoy authentic Italian cuisine. Your guide will suggest you a couple of wonderful lake-view restaurants.
Enjoy a quick ferry ride from Bellagio to Varenna
After lunch in Bellagio, you will take a ferry to Varenna together with your guide and discover this ancient village with your guide. Enjoy a guided tour with your guide and free time (during which you can visit Villa Monastero or Gates of Heaven) After visit of Varenna, you will take the train back to Milan together with your guide.
Express first class train ride from Varenna (Lake Como) to Milan
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Not recommended for travelers with spinal injuries
- Not recommended for travelers with poor cardiovascular health
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
- All time for transportation (train, ferry, subway, etc) is already included in the tour duration.
- The tour programme & schedule can change for operations reasons (eg train strike, bad weather, force majeure, technical issues of the boat, etc)
- At the end of the tour the group will normally take the train from Varenna to return to Milan, but if you wish you can stay in Varenna to spend more time there and take on of the next trains/buses by yourself (we will provide the tickets - this must be comunicated before 13:00 on the day of the tour)
- During the summer period, there is a small beach in Varenna if you want to swim a little
- The tour is always confirmed in case of rain. Tour duration is approx. 10 hours (the tours ends in Milan Central Station).
- In the winter time (November-mid March) the tour starts 1 hour earlier (7:55 AM meeting point in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and 8:15 meeting point in Central Station), while summer time (April-October) the tour starts 1 hour later (8:45 AM meeting point in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and 9:15 meeting point in Central Station).
- It is possible to cancel free of charge only up to 24 hours before the tour, after that term it is not possible to cancel free of charge or modify the booking (for any reason). No-shows are non refunded. In order to cancel the booking, you need to do it from your account, please do not text us or call us to cancel the bookings - it can only be done by you personally from your account
- If you wish to visit Last Supper on the day of the tour, please book it separately in the early morning or late eveving.
- Bring an ID (passport, ID or driving license - an original, not a photo), this can be requested by train company
- If you wish to visit Villa Cipressi (Gates of Heaven) or Villa Monastero during your free time in Varenna, you can buy the ticket directly there in the villa
- Not suitable for travelers with mobility impairments
Reviews(1,455)
This tour was amazing - highly recommend it! I would like to now go back and do it alone as would have liked more time at the stops - but it was great learning about all the history and ‘secrets’. Plus we had the most amazing tour guide - Antonella was amazing! So helpful and kind and really showed us all a great time at ever opportunity. The only reason it’s a 4* and not 5* was because it took us 3 hours to get back after there was a fault with the trains which all got cancelled so had to take a taxi back to Milan - but our tour guide again was amazing and sorted everything out for us and it was all paid for by the tour operator. A great day but v.tiring due to our 3hr trip home in the end 🙈. However would still highly recommend this tour.
My daughter went on this tour solo, because I had an accident and was unable to. She said the tour was a wonderful experience, from beginning to end. Tour guide Angela was so sweet and friendly, so knowledgeable, and gave such wonderful tips for restaurants and things to see during our free time. She also did such a wonderful job bringing the group together and making us feel like a big family for the day. The tour itself is so well-organized and the sights are absolutely beautiful. It does have a lot of stairs and walking, so be ready for that. But this tour, particularly with Angela as the guide, is completely worth it.
It was as a great tour. Antonella was a very knowledgeable and experienced guide which helped getting on the train and boats. A small group of 14 makes it very easy to tour with as opposed to larger groups.
Really well organized trip with an experienced guide with excellent English. You get enough time at each stop; even with a easy going lunch at Bellagio there is plenty of time to explore the shops. Transit with the train and cruise is well managed. I will note the recommended lunch place has some pretty poor reviews (we did not go there so cannot speak to it personally) so you may want to check out and reserve lunch on your own.
Terrible experience, poor organisation for ferry trips. Queue management is non existent, waited 3hrs to board a ferry not realising the queue was not really manned by any staff at all and people were just queue jumping left right and centre. Was told not sure if we’d be able to board a ferry to Como, but we’re sold ferry tickets anyway. Absolutely poor service!!! Wouldn’t recommend
Hello, this is a fake review or it is posted for a wrong company as the description does not match our tour and we did not have any client with this name. Please pay attention to posting your reviews in a right place. Best regards, Memento Italy
We had an absolutely incredible time on this tour with Angela! She was extremely friendly, welcoming, and went out of her way to make our day stress-free. As we crossed by ferry from Como to Bellagio and eventually to Varenna, Angela shared extensive knowledge about the beautiful villas and historical sites along the water, which really brought the scenery to life. She also provided some fantastic local food recommendations that made our day even better. To top it all off, she was incredibly helpful in making sure we knew exactly how to navigate the metro to get back home safely from the meeting point at the end of the day. I highly recommend booking this tour if you want a well-guided, memorable trip to Lake Como!
Amazing experience with a wonderfully knowledgeable guide. Nadia was so helpful in not only giving us information on the history of the area but also recommendations of where to eat and which the best gelato shop in was! We got a message via WhatsApp in advance of the tour to give us the information we needed and a direct contact for Nadia which came in handy as we managed to separate ourselves from the group when we got on the first boat. This made what could have been an incredibly stressful meet-up easy and almost relaxing. Thank you to Nadia and the team!
The tour is wonderful considering it is August, a special date, the guide is a phenomenon, thanks for the good experience.
This was a great tour and we had a fantastic time. Our train was delayed by an hour and this meant we did not get a tour of the town upon arrival, but the boat tour was very pretty and Lake Como was gorgeous. We loved Bellagio and Ravenna and would do this tour again for sure. One note: though our guide was absolutely lovely, he told us up front that he did not use headsets as he didnt like them. And, we were speaking with/seeing the other group run by his colleague, who departed with us and returned with us as well...and her group not only had headsets, but she was constantly giving amazing commentary...so while we enjoyed the tour, we really wished we had been given headsets and information about what we were seeing, because our guide seldom spoke and when he did it was really just over his shoulder as he walked for a couple mins and it was impossible to hear. So he was lovely...just...not a very informational guide...and we would much have preferred learning. Still, we had a lovely time and they were very good about remaining patient and catching the next train when ors was cancelled.
Angela was an amazing tour guide. She is very knowledgeable and knows her stuff! She made this tour very enjoyable and informative while making sure everyone was comfortable.
