Cupid and Psyche
The famous embrace in its beloved version — Canova present.
Paolobon140 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Marimari52 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bartolomeo Giuliano — Public domain · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0
Como's eternal question: Balbianello is site, cinema and unforgettable loggia with booking and complication; Carlotta art, gardens and breadth in absolute ease. Honestly: the full lake day joins them, the ferry minutes apart — and choosing one: Balbianello for the immortal view, Carlotta for a family or azalea season.
The fast ferry is a scenic hour to Tremezzo with the pier at the villa's front, or coastal bus C10 in an hour-plus — and the boat is the right outbound: the villa shores are a full parade from the water.
Two balanced hours: two-thirds for the gardens on their marked routes (take the season map at the gate), a third for the palace — azalea season deserving an added hour and patience with fellow pilgrims.
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Villa Carlotta in Tremezzo is Como's complete villa: a late-seventeenth-century palace facing Bellagio across the water, uniting what its neighbours divide — a genuine art museum within and eight hectares of botanical garden without, with no pre-booking and no capricious closures. The interior surprises by weight: marbles of Canova and his school — the famous Cupid and Psyche in Tadolini's cherished version — frescoes and Romantic paintings led by The Last Kiss of Hayez, maker of Milan's The Kiss. Outside reigns the calendar: April and May bring the legendary azalea detonation — hundreds of varieties firing whole hillsides — summer the woodland gardens, bamboo grove and fern valley, autumn the lake's gold. The name is Princess Carlotta's, given the villa as a wedding gift — and the gift has remained the west shore's unrivalled visit for two centuries.
The famous embrace in its beloved version — Canova present.
Hundreds of varieties ablaze in May — the gardeners' annual pilgrimage.
Romantic Hayez in a lake house — sister to Brera's Kiss.
The famous promontory across the water from the terraces.
Via Regina 2, 22016 Tremezzina