Como, Lake Como: A Guide to the Lake’s Grand Gateway City
Most people meet the lake at Como. The trains from Milan end here, the ferries begin here, and the water reveals itself all at once as you step out of the station — a wall of green mountains dropping straight into blue, with a walled city stacked at the bottom of it. Como is the practical heart of the whole region, the point everything else connects back to.
But it would be a mistake to treat it only as a doorway. Como, Lake Como’s southern gateway, is a working city rather than a resort, and it has been for a very long time. It has made silk for centuries and still does. It gave the world Alessandro Volta, and, long before him, the two Plinys of ancient Rome. Walk ten minutes from the platforms and you are inside medieval walls, under a Gothic cathedral, beside a promenade that runs along the water. Give it half a day and it rewards you; make it your base and you have the best-connected address on the lake.
A brief history
Como began as Roman Comum, birthplace of Pliny the Elder and his nephew Pliny the Younger. Its medieval character was forged in conflict: after Milan razed the town in 1127, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa authorised its defences to be rebuilt, and by 1192 the great gate of Porta Torre stood facing the road to Milan as a deliberate statement of independence.
From the Renaissance onward, Como’s fortune was silk — a trade that still runs through the city’s workshops and design houses. In 1745 it produced Alessandro Volta, the physicist who built the first electric battery and lent his name to the volt. That is the short version. For the deeper story of the city’s faith, culture and traditions, see our guide to the cultural history of Como. What follows here is the practical one: where to go, and what to see.
Where Como sits on the lake
Como occupies the extreme south-western tip of the lake, where the Como arm narrows to a point against the foot of the Alps. It is the closest lakeside town to Milan — a little under an hour by train — which is exactly why it is the standard arrival point, and the busiest. Two stations serve it: Como San Giovanni, on the main line from Milan and Switzerland, and Como Lago, right at the water’s edge.
From the city’s piers, the ferries fan out north along both shores. The first stop up the western shore is Tavernola, a small frazione just past the edge of town; from there the boats carry on toward Cernobbio and, eventually, the fork of the lake at Bellagio. Wherever you are heading, you are heading from here.
The 5 best things to see in Como
1. Como Cathedral (Duomo di Como)
The Duomo is the city’s masterpiece, and often called the last Gothic cathedral built in Italy — begun in 1396 and not finished until 1770, when Filippo Juvarra crowned it with a Rococo dome. The result is a single building you can read like a timeline, Gothic at the base and Baroque at the top. Flanking the main portal are statues of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, a rare pair of pagan Romans standing guard on a Christian facade. Step inside for the 16th-century tapestries and the paintings by Bernardino Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari.
2. The Brunate funicular
For the view that defines the city, ride the funicular up to the village of Brunate on the ridge above. Opened in 1894 and running ever since, it climbs just over a kilometre at gradients reaching 55 percent, so the whole basin tilts open beneath you as you rise. From the balconies at the top, the panorama over Como and the lower lake is one of the finest in the region, and walking trails lead straight off into the hills for anyone who wants to keep climbing.
3. The lakefront: Tempio Voltiano and Life Electric
Como’s promenade is where the city turns to face its water, and it is stitched with tributes to Volta. The neoclassical Tempio Voltiano (1928) is a compact museum built to hold his instruments and papers. Out on the breakwater beyond it stands Life Electric, Daniel Libeskind’s stainless-steel sculpture unveiled in 2015 — two curving blades nearly fourteen metres tall, shaped to evoke the tension between the poles of a battery. Old science and new architecture, on the same short walk.
4. Villa Olmo and its gardens
West along the shore, Villa Olmo is Como’s grand neoclassical villa, built between 1797 and 1812 to a design by the architect Simone Cantoni. The house itself opens only for exhibitions, but the lakeside gardens are free and open through the day — an easy, leafy walk from the centre that gives you the villa, the water and a quieter stretch of shoreline all at once.
5. The historic centre: Piazza Cavour and Porta Torre
The old town is compact and made for walking. Piazza Cavour opens directly onto the lake, a broad square of cafes facing the ferry piers. Behind it, the tight grid of Roman streets survives almost intact, closed at its southern edge by Porta Torre — the forty-metre medieval gate of 1192, and one of the best-preserved pieces of Romanesque military architecture in Italy. Trace the line of the old walls and you have circled the medieval city in under an hour.
Planning your visit
Getting there. Como San Giovanni is under an hour from Milano Centrale; for the full run-through of airports, stations and transfers, see our guide to getting from Milan to Lake Como. Once you have arrived, the ferries are the way to see the rest of the lake — our Lake Como ferry guide covers routes, tickets and timings.
Best for. First-time visitors, day-trippers from Milan, and anyone who wants a city base with shops, restaurants and transport rather than a hushed resort.
When to go. Spring and early autumn are ideal — mild, clear, and quieter than the July and August crush. Summer works if you start early and use the funicular before the queues build.
Nearby. The first true village north is Cernobbio, ten minutes away by boat and worth a half-day for its villas. Further up, where the lake divides around its central promontory, sits Bellagio, the classic next stop on any Como itinerary.
Como is not the prettiest village on the lake, and it does not try to be. It is the one that makes the rest of the lake possible — a real city with a Gothic cathedral, a mountain at its back and a battery’s worth of history along its shore. Arrive here, look up, and the lake takes care of the rest.