Historic Villa & Gardens Tour in Varenna, Lake Como

Varenna is widely considered the most romantic village on Lake Como — a pastel-coloured fishing settlement of just 800 inhabitants, with a wooden walkway (the Passeggiata degli Innamorati) hugging the lake at sunset. Villa Monastero and Villa Cipressi offer some of the lake's finest gardens, and the ferry from Varenna to Bellagio and Menaggio takes 15 minutes — making it the perfect quiet base from which to explore the whole lake.

Lake Como's villas and their botanical gardens were the laboratories of 19th-century European horticulture — azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias and rare conifers planted by the same gardeners who advised Empress Eugénie and Queen Victoria. A private guided tour from Varenna covers the four indispensable estates: Villa Carlotta (azalea collection), Villa Melzi (English garden), Villa Monastero (Mediterranean terraces) and Villa del Balbianello (Bond and Star Wars filming location).

Your guide is a horticulturist, not just a tour leader. Tours can be paced as a full day with lake-ferry transfers and a long lakeside lunch, or split across two mornings. April–May is the unmissable peak — by mid-May the rhododendrons are at their most dramatic.