The ferry from Varenna pulls out into a lake the colour of slate. It is early November, the gardens along the shore have turned rust and gold, and the first snow has dusted the tops of the Grigne. Only a handful of passengers are aboard, most of them locals with shopping bags. A Lake Como boat trip at this time of year is a different thing from the summer crush: slower, quieter and, on a clear day, more beautiful.
Villas from the water
The villas were built to be seen from the lake, and the lake is still the best place to see them. From a boat you take in the whole composition that a visitor on foot never quite gets: Villa del Balbianello on its point at Lavedo, the terraced gardens of Villa Carlotta at Tremezzo, the pale front of Villa Melzi stretched along the shore just south of Bellagio. In summer you see them past a queue of other boats. In November the water in front of them is often empty.
Most of the garden villas close their gates for the winter, so the view from the water may be the only one you get. That suits the season. The light comes in low across the lake, the hills behind are bare enough to show the old mule tracks and terraces, and the stone of the villas warms to the colour of honey in the late afternoon. Bring a warm coat and a flask. The air on the lake turns cold as soon as the sun drops behind the mountains, and in November it drops early.
Bellagio in the quiet months
Bellagio, on its point where the arms of the lake meet, is the place most visitors come for, and in summer it shows. Out of season it goes back to being a village. Many hotels and some restaurants close, the stepped lanes up from the waterfront are empty in the morning, and the bars on the lakefront serve the people who live there. Arriving by water, you step off at a quiet landing instead of into a crowd.
The lake behaves differently too. The summer winds, the Tivano that blows down from the north in the morning and the Breva that comes up from the south in the afternoon, are weaker in winter, and some days the surface lies flat from end to end. Other days bring fog that sits on the water until noon, or a north wind that turns the lake grey and short-tempered. If you are taking your own boat out, check the forecast, the current lake navigation rules and the winter timetable of the ferries you will be sharing the water with.
Toys waiting for spring
For owners with a house on the lake, November is when the summer kit comes in. Varnished runabouts go into the boathouses or under covers, and the inflatables that made the summer, the floating deck off the jetty and the hammock that spent August half in the water, are rinsed, dried and bagged.
A Premium Teak Platform 4.10 m shows why that care matters. At 410 x 205 cm it is a big surface, built from 0.9 mm PVC with drop-stitch fabric, and it is the piece that suffers most if it goes away damp. Rinse it with clean water, let it dry fully on both sides and fold it loosely into its bag. The same goes for a Water Hammock, which spreads to 250 x 290 cm and is made of drop-stitch fabric with PVC, and for the small parts that are easy to lose over the winter, such as the Air Cushion that sits between modules as a soft buffer. Keep them dry, off a cold stone floor if you can, and away from anything sharp. The storage advice in our buying guide goes into more detail.
Then leave them there. The lake in winter is for looking at, from the deck of the ferry or from the shore at Varenna with a coffee in your hand. The deck comes out again in spring, when the gardens reopen, the Breva returns in the afternoons and the water in front of the villas starts to fill.
