THE ITALIAN LAKES Lake Como Top 10
It was called Lacus Larius by the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC) – and indeed is still sometimes referred to as Lario. It was mentioned in the letters of the Roman senator Pliny the Younger (61-113 AD), who is said to have owned a villa on the shores of the lake and whose uncle, the natural historian Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), was certainly born in Como.
Lake Como is Italy’s third largest lake, after Garda and Maggiore, and is the only one of those three to be entirely within the region of Lombardy.
It is shaped like an inverted Y. At its northern end, on the eastern bank, is the town of Colico. At the southernmost point of the western spur is Como, while Lecco lies at the southernmost tip of the eastern spur. Bellagio, which attracts many visitors, is on the peninsula where the two spurs of the lake meet.
A short drive up from Milan brings you to the lakeshore road where in the 19th century small fishing villages began to expand to become modern lakeside resorts. The ancient town of Como, the ‘capital’, is known for the traditional local industry of silk-weaving, with busy silk shops in
