Milan → Verona

01 Church

Milan Cathedral

Duomo di Milano

Begun in 1386, the cathedral changed its ambitions when Gian Galeazzo Visconti imposed Candoglia marble and a late Gothic style from northern Europe. Exempt from tolls, its blocks marked AUF made their way to Milan, where Lombard masters and foreign architects vied for control of the works. Raise your eyes to a forest of pale marble spires.

02 Museum

Sancarlone

Colosso di san Carlo Borromeo

Look up at this Saint Charles Borromeo in hammered copper, visible from Lake Maggiore and blessed in 1698. Designed by Cerano, the statue stands 23.40 metres tall, and Bartholdi came to study it in Arona before designing the Statue of Liberty. An internal staircase climbs up to the head, whose eyes and ears open onto the landscape.

03 Village

Stresa

On the western shore of the Borromean Gulf, Stresa lines up grand hotels and villas facing the Borromean Islands, three of which belong to the municipality. Stroll along a shore where, in April 1935, Italy, France and the United Kingdom sealed the Stresa Front against Germany. Above, the municipality climbs all the way to the Mottarone.

04 Castle

Villa Taranto

On the shores of Lake Maggiore, the Scotsman Neil McEacharn bought a villa in 1930 that he had spotted in an advertisement in The Times, and turned it into a botanical garden. Wander 7 kilometres of paths among more than 20,000 species, each labelled with its name. In the tropical glasshouses spread the great Victoria cruziana water lilies.

05 Village

Cannobio

Stroll along the shore of Lake Maggiore, in this border town whose harbour once shipped timber and hides to Milan. This old link explains why Cannobio still follows the Ambrosian rite, unlike the lake's other Piedmontese towns. In May 1859, its inhabitants repelled an Austrian attack from the water.

06 Monument

Piazza Grande

07 Church

Lugano Cathedral

Kathedrale San Lorenzo

08 Village

Morcote

09 Village

Gandria

10 Village

Menaggio

Stroll along the promenade of Menaggio, a town on the west shore of Lake Como, at the mouth of its valley. The Roman Via Regina passed through the town, whose four-towered castle fell to the Grisons in 1523. The Belle Époque scattered villas and grand hotels here, all facing the water.

11 Museum  · Family

Villa Carlotta

Built from 1690 for the Marquis Giorgio II Clerici, the villa took the name of Carlotta, to whom her mother gave it in 1847. In the meantime, Gian Battista Sommariva had gathered sculptures by Canova and Thorvaldsen here. From its gardens, gaze across at the Bellagio peninsula and the mountains of the lake.

12 Museum

Villa del Balbianello

Catch sight of the villa on the Lavedo point, on Lake Como, where Cardinal Durini built it in 1787 on a former Franciscan convent. The explorer Guido Monzino bequeathed it to the FAI, and both Star Wars and Casino Royale were filmed here. From the loggia, the lake stretches away towards the Tremezzina and Isola Comacina.

13 Church

Como Cathedral

Duomo di Como

On either side of the portal, recognise Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, sons of Como. Begun in 1396 by the lake, the cathedral only received its dome by Filippo Juvarra in the 18th century. Inside, tapestries from Ferrara, Florence and Brussels hang alongside canvases by Bernardino Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari.

14 Castle

Villa Melzi

Villa Melzi d'Eril

Giocondo Albertolli designed this neoclassical villa in 1808 for Francesco Melzi d'Eril, vice-president of Napoleon's Italian Republic. Stroll through the English-style gardens, stretching for 800 metres along the lake among camellias and azaleas. Four Egyptian-style lions guard the façade of a house where Stendhal, Liszt and the Shelleys stayed.

15 Village

Bellagio, Lombardy

Bellagio

Bellagio sits on the point where the arms of Lake Como divide, facing the Alps that close the horizon to the north. Pliny the Younger already had his summer villa here, at the top of the hill. Its stepped lanes run down to the water of this renowned resort.

16 Village

Varenna

On the eastern shore of Lake Como, this fishing village, recorded as early as 769, took in the exiles from Isola Comacina in the 12th century. Vezio Castle keeps watch above the rooftops, and the gardens of Villa Monastero and Villa Cipressi run down to the water. Follow the Lovers' Walk along the water's edge, unhurried.

17 Castle

Mura veneziane di Bergamo

Walk all the way around Bergamo Alta along these Venetian walls begun in 1561, which never saw battle. Fourteen bastions and four gates, including San Giacomo, the one with the finest views, encircle the upper town. Listed by UNESCO in 2017, they offer a walk above the lower town and the plain.

18 Museum

Scaligero Castle

Castello scaligero di Sirmione

Surrounded by the waters of Lake Garda, this Scaliger fortress has guarded the entrance to old Sirmione since the 14th century, almost unaltered. Spot its fortified harbour, built between 1351 and 1375. Isabella d'Este, passing through in 1514, found the place so spartan that she preferred to sleep elsewhere.

19 Museum

Vittoriale degli italiani

From 1921 to 1938, Gabriele d'Annunzio had Giancarlo Maroni build this monument to his own legend at Gardone Riviera. Between the object-crammed Prioria, the ship Puglia in the gardens and the mausoleum where he lies, everything speaks of him. Sit in the theatre to watch the lake stretch away towards Sirmione and Monte Baldo.

20 Museum

Museo della Pesca

21 Castle

Rocca di Riva del Garda

Set on an islet surrounded by a water-filled moat and Lake Garda, the Rocca once defended the port of Riva. The Scaligeri gave it its almost square plan with four towers, then the Austrian army turned it into barracks in the 19th century. From the access bridge, watch the water set it apart from the old town.

22 Castle

Castello scaligero

Set on a rocky platform on the north-east shore of Lake Garda, Malcesine castle was home to the Scaligeri from 1277 to 1387. Climb up to the Rivellino facing Monte Baldo, then to the keep, rising some 70 metres above the water. Goethe sketched it on his travels, and a room bears his name.

23 Heritage

Punta San Vigilio

On this point of Lake Garda, Agostino di Brenzone, owner from 1540, had Michele Sanmicheli lay out an estate around a 13th-century church. Follow with your eyes the cypress avenue rising to the villa, still private, before heading down to the little harbour. In 1913 John Singer Sargent came here to paint the light on the lake.

24 Archaeology

Verona Arena

Arena di Verona

Built in the 1st century, even before the Colosseum, the arena is among the best-preserved ancient amphitheatres. Of its outer ring, only a four-arch section, the Ala, survives. You may hear opera here, performed every summer since 1913, on the very spot where the 2026 Winter Olympics came to a close.