Villa Balbianello

Our afternoon visit took us to the south of Lake Como to the town of Lenno, where we had lunch. Villa Balbianello is an elegant, romantic, C18th mansion and garden set on a wooded promontory overlooking the lake. There are two ways of reaching the property, either by boat, if the lake is calm, or a long walk in. It was judged not calm enough for the boat ride, so we walked up through the woods before emerging into the grounds of the Villa. We certainly made our 10,000 steps today!
The last owner and architect of all we see today was Count Guido Monzino, a latter day adventurer and explorer, who clearly loved a challenge. Like a magpie, he collected objets d’art from all over the world during his travels, which adorn his unique home.
One approaches the villa down a winding path, lined with pollarded trees. There are the classic tall slim Italian pines and beds of box hummocks (no dreaded moth here!) and colourful Icelandic poppies on the way down. The villa is divided into two sections, separated by the magnificent Loggia Durini, overlooking the lake. Cardinal Durini was the original owner of the villa, which was built and adapted on the site of an ancient Franciscan monastery in the C18th . I have no picture of this spot I’m afraid, as the whole area had been taken over by the selfie maniacs, who seem to think they have the right to overtake any attractive spot and deny anyone else a chance to look. This was not the first time we had come across the phenomenon, but it was by far the worst example of people’s hideous and even aggressive behaviour.
To the left of the Loggia is Guido Monzoni’s chart room and library, from which his expeditions were planned. Across the loggia is the rest of the villa. (We had a private tour organised, so escaped the screaming hoards!). There are beautiful reception rooms, housing English and French furniture of which the Count was very fond and a lovely suite of rooms created for his mother, who apparently visited once, never to return. Nothing was to her taste! You can’t please some people, even with the headboards in the bedroom being solid silver!!
Climbing a set of winding stairs brings you to the exhibition loft. Here are displayed many photos, flags and honours marking Guido Monzoni’s life as an adventurer, including one of the eight sleds he used to reach the North Pole. There are even artefacts from his Mt Everest ascent. This was clearly a man who didn’t stand still for long, but hopefully retreated back to his fabulous home to retrench and recover when necessary. I could happily sit on his grassy terrace looking at that marvellous view of Lake Como for a very long time - as could Daniel Craig aka James Bond when Casino Royale was filmed here. The setting is so stunning several movies have had scenes filmed here. Villa Balbianello seemed a fitting end to our Lake Como exploration and we returned to our hotel for a final superb dinner, before packing up to travel on to the second part of our adventure.Read more