Themed picks · Milan · Lakes
10 lake towns near Milan
Ten towns: what each is best for, what a home costs, and the catch. In Milan's center a square meter costs €5,100 to €12,500; here it starts at €1,050, in Gozzano.
10 comuni · within 90 minutes of Milan · drive times by road from the city center
The lake country north of Milan reads as one region on the tourism brochures and as several very different geographies once you drive into it. Como is the famous one, narrow and steep, with villa gardens and the heaviest summer traffic in northern Italy. Maggiore is wider, calmer, with the Borromean islands at its center and a French-Swiss northern shore. Iseo, between the two, is the working lake (Franciacorta wineries on its south shore, fishing villages on its north). Lugano sits across the Swiss border but the Italian shore towns count, and to the west, in Piedmont, small Orta and Mergozzo sit beside Maggiore.
Milan is the right base for a lake-country trip because every one of these lakes is inside a 90-minute drive and reachable by rail. The Milano-Como line runs every half hour. Stresa on Maggiore is an hour from Centrale. Iseo is 90 minutes via Brescia. From a single hotel in Milan you can fit a different lake on each of four or five days without ever spending a night on the water.
We picked ten towns that cover the range, ranked by their Borghi più belli, Bandiera Arancione and Bandiera Blu flags and by how close they are, which spreads them across six lakes. The drive times below are by road from the center of Milan; rail times are flagged where the train is meaningfully faster than driving.
The towns
1Novara · Piemonte · 1 h 8 min from Milan
Orta San Giulio
Best for a trip without a car. The train stops in the commune.
homes €1,700 to €3,000 a m² in the center · 1,102 people
A promontory facing an islet basilica, with a UNESCO complex of Francis-of-Assisi chapels on the hill above.
UNESCO inscription of 2003, twenty Francis-of-Assisi chapels on San Nicolao hill, modelled on Varallo and begun under Abbot Canobio in 1583.
A working lake comune, on the water.
2Novara · Piemonte · 1 h 3 min from Milan
Gozzano
Best for a swim. The comune's beach holds a Blue Flag.
homes €1,050 to €1,500 a m² in the center · 5,499 people
The town at the southern tip of Lake Orta, marked by a basilica and a twelfth-century signaling tower above the water.
Southern tip of the smallest Italian subalpine lake, water at 290 meters, with Bandiera Blu certification for water quality.
3Como · Lombardia · 1 h 4 min from Milan
Torno
Best for a small town. 1,041 people live here.
homes €1,500 to €2,100 a m² in the center · 1,041 people
A medieval village on the eastern shore of Lake Como, built around a spring whose rhythm has drawn attention for centuries.
Rhythmic intermittent spring in the villa grounds, described by Pliny the Younger and studied by Leonardo da Vinci.
4Novara · Piemonte · 1 h 4 min from Milan
Arona
Best for everyday life on foot. Nine of the ten everyday services we look for are mapped within 500 meters of the center.
homes €1,650 to €2,450 a m² in the center · 13,655 people
A town at the southern tip of a lake, watched over by a colossus finished in 1698.
35.1-meter copper colossus of San Carlo Borromeo, the tallest visitable statue in the world from 1698 until the Statue of Liberty in 1886.
5Lecco · Lombardia · 1 h 24 min from Milan
Bellano
Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.
homes €1,250 to €1,800 a m² in the center · 3,364 people
An eastern shore town where the Pioverna cut a gorge through fifteen million years of rock before reaching the water.
Gorge of the Pioverna, walked on suspended catwalks, the natural attraction that has drawn visitors to Bellano since the nineteenth century.
The catch: It is the longest drive on this list: 1 h 24 min from Milan.
6Bergamo · Lombardia · 1 h 10 min from Milan
Sarnico
Best for a slow weekend. The Touring Club gives it its orange flag for small inland towns.
homes €1,650 to €2,200 a m² in the center · 6,840 people
A medieval lake town at the southern tip of Lago d'Iseo, where the Oglio leaves the lake and Liberty villas line the shore.
Sommaruga's Faccanoni villas and mausoleum make Sarnico one of Italy's densest concentrations of Art Nouveau architecture.
7Varese · Lombardia · 1 h from Milan
Angera
homes €1,300 to €1,600 a m² in the center · 5,329 people
A Lake Maggiore town on the southern shore, anchored by a fortified castle on a limestone spur above the water, with a museum trail running from prehistory to the medieval period along the waterfront.
Rocca Borromea: 13th-century fortified castle, family seat since 1449, with a frescoed Justice Hall depicting the astrological theme of Archbishop Ottone Visconti's victory at Desio.
8Como · Lombardia · 1 h 3 min from Milan
Cernobbio
Best for a long lunch. Food guides list five tables here.
homes €1,550 to €2,650 a m² in the center · 6,225 people
The town where Villa d'Este has been a luxury hotel since 1873.
The 1560s villa of Cardinal Gallio, traditionally credited to Tibaldi, a luxury hotel since 1873 and host of the September Ambrosetti Forum.
9Verbano-Cusio-Ossola · Piemonte · 1 h 20 min from Milan
Mergozzo
Best for walks in a national park. Part of the comune lies in a national park.
homes €1,300 to €1,900 a m² in the center · 2,139 people
A village on the western shore of a small lake cut off from its larger neighbor by river sediment, with a centuries-old elm on its lakefront piazza.
Closed off from Lago Maggiore by river sediment, motor-free and clean enough for swimming straight off the piazza.
10Varese · Lombardia · 1 h 6 min from Milan
Porto Ceresio
Best for a World Heritage site. UNESCO lists a site in the comune.
homes €1,200 to €1,550 a m² in the center · 2,820 people
The Italian port on the southern shore where the Swiss border runs through the water below Monte San Giorgio.
UNESCO World Heritage fossil mountain, 240 million years old, extended to include Porto Ceresio in 2010.
We write about towns like these one town at a time, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Turin.
Why Milan is the base
Milan is Italy's transit center by default. Two airports (MXP, LIN), Centrale and Garibaldi stations, motorway access in every direction, and a metro system that makes the city itself easy to use as a base rather than a destination. The lakes are close enough that day-trips work; the city is dense enough that you do not need a car to enjoy it the rest of the time. The cooking spans the whole north: lake fish from Como, Franciacorta from Iseo, the heavy butter-and-saffron register from the city itself.
When to go
May, June, and September are the working windows: the gardens are open, the water is swimmable by June, the crowds on Como are still manageable. October is when the lake mists start; Maggiore is at its most photogenic. November through March is closed-season for most villa gardens but the towns themselves stay open and the food is at its heaviest (good for it). Avoid the second half of July and all of August unless you are committed to traffic on the SS340 around Como.
Questions people ask
- Which lake near Milan is the least crowded?
- Iseo and Orta. Iseo's south shore is wine country (Franciacorta) and the lake itself has Monte Isola, Italy's largest inland-lake island, with car-free villages on it. Orta, the smallest of the major Lombard lakes, has a single famous town (Orta San Giulio) and a quiet shoreline beyond it.
- Can I take a day trip to Lake Como by train from Milan?
- Yes. The Milano Centrale to Como San Giovanni train runs every 30 minutes and takes about 40 minutes. From Como, ferries fan out across the whole lake. A second option is the Milano Centrale to Varenna train (about 75 minutes), which lands you mid-lake.
- What is the best lake town near Milan for food?
- Stresa on Maggiore for fine dining and the lake-fish tradition; Iseo town for the Franciacorta cellars on its southern hills; Como itself for the heavier polenta-and-missoltino register. Bellagio is famous and the food is honest, but it costs.
- Is there a quieter alternative to Bellagio?
- Tremezzo, Lenno, or Varenna on Como; Pallanza or Cannobio on Maggiore; Orta San Giulio on Lake Orta. All carry the same lake-villa beauty without the summer crowds.
How we picked these · We took every town in our catalogue within 90 minutes of Milan by car (47 of them), kept the 23 that sit on a lake, and ranked them by Borghi più belli, Bandiera Arancione and Bandiera Blu and by how close they are. Bellagio and Varenna qualify and rank lower: they hold none of those three flags and sit further out, which suits a page about the quieter choices.
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