The columned front
1797 neoclassicism presiding over the water — the town's first palace.
Maurizio Moro5153 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Maurizio Moro5153 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Maurizio Moro5153 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fuljack — CC BY-SA 4.0
Villa Olmo is Como's grandeur open to all: the town shore's greatest neoclassical palace (1797), built by Marquis Odescalchi with a columned front presiding over the lake — Napoleon and Garibaldi received as guests — and today the city's own: its formal front gardens public and free into the evening, its halls opening for major exhibitions season upon season. It also ends the "kilometre of knowledge" — the celebrated shore walk from the town centre through three villas' linked gardens: Como's finest free stroll, flat, shaded, reviewing the boat parade, closing at Olmo's terraces and fountain with the town stretched on the water before you. Take it as the after-lunch pause: gelato from the front, a bench at the water's lip, the lake performing.
1797 neoclassicism presiding over the water — the town's first palace.
The shore kilometre through three linked gardens, free.
Via Cantoni 1, 22100 Como
Tempio VoltianoOn Como's lakefront stands a domed neoclassical temple to no god but a scientist11 minutes walk4.3
Giardini a Lago (Como Lakefront Gardens)Como waited roughly seventeen years to get its own waterfront back. The strip be12 minutes walk4.3
Como-Brunate FunicularSeven minutes, five hundred metres of altitude. That is the whole of what the Co17 minutes walk4.5
Como CathedralComo's cathedral is Italy's last Gothic cathedral and its first Renaissance one 20 minutes walk4.6It does not try — its office differs: Carlotta and Balbianello are ticketed half-day voyages; Olmo is the town's free grandeur for the loose hour between train and boat. The villa of beautiful waiting — or less unjustly: Como's public balcony.
Gallia of the province, its preserved sisters, Olmo the crown — their gardens one thread of linked paths: enter the first green near the stadium and never leave foliage till Olmo's fountain. The evening return, town lights opposite, is the walk's finer direction.