Italy's Lake Como: A love story

Image via Wiki

"Water is God’s tranquilizer,” Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, once said—words Susan cited regularly. If ever we needed tranquillity it was now, and Lake Como, ringed by quiet towns, elegant holiday villas and snow-crowned mountains, offered the perfect mix of scenery, culture—and views of God’s tranquilizer.

“This will be great,” I say as Susan and I make our plans. “Eat, look out at the lake, converse, look out at the lake, stroll, look out at the lake. By day two we’ll just look out at the lake—and be the most relaxed we’ve ever been.”

An hour’s drive north of Milan, Lake Como has seduced visitors since Roman times with its extravagant natural setting in the foothills of the Alps, temperate climate and, later, grand villas. I already knew we’d stay at perhaps the best known of these, the luxurious Villa d’Este.

Which is what we’re looking for as we pull into Cernobbio, a vintage resort town on Como’s south-western shore. The lake, walled by steep mountainsides, glitters under an afternoon sun. Before us, baronial buildings and pavilions—including the main residence, built for a 16th-century cardinal—have arranged themselves along the lakefront, punctuated by gardens filled with palms, cypresses, flowering plants and the whiff of camellias.
 

Image via Around de Globe

I reach over and take my wife’s hand. She turns towards me and smiles, then gently rests her head against my shoulder.

“This,” she purrs, “is the most peaceful place. I could stay forever.” I nod and hold her hand tightly.

For Susan, forever is just a few short months away. We’ve been married for more than 30 years, raising two children in the process. We’ve had our ups and downs, interspersed with many glorious days and nights. Through it all, we’ve remained what we’d been from the very start—each other’s best friend.

Susan’s illness—stage-four lung cancer—froze me. I withdrew, confused and angry. We had always valued honesty and used humour as a shield against any obstacle. But would either be enough to weather the severe storm she faced?

“Let’s take a trip,” Susan had said one morning, washing down a dozen pills with a smoothie. “I want to get one more trip in while I still can.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Some place that can make me forget,” Susan said.

“Is there a land of such supreme and perfect beauty anywhere?” wondered the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow after a visit to Lake Como. 

And so we set our story here. Susan, of course, is determined to make the most of every moment.

We’ll walk the acres of gardens at Villa Carlotta, north of Cernobbio in Tremezzo, where the lush plantings, marble sculptures and blooming flowers make us feel as if we’ve dropped into another century. We’ll ride the boats that operate as buses, transporting locals and tourists from Varenna, midway up the lakeshore, west to Menaggio, then south to Bellagio, “the pearl of Lake Como”.
 

As Susan and I board a small boat to visit one of the best restaurants in Italy, the Locanda dell’Isola Comacina, I fill her in on Comacina’s history.

“Almost no one set foot on the island from the 1100s to the 1940s,” I intone, “thanks to a curse imposed by the bishop of Como.”

The restaurant fills the top floor of a two-storey villa overlooking the lake.

We sip a crisp Soave Classico wine as we dine on owner Benvenuto Puricelli’s cooking: smoked ham, grilled trout, chicken baked in a wood stove, slabs of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Then Puricelli emerges from the kitchen and pours brandy and sugar into a copper pot that has been filled with rich coffee, telling us that drinking his special brew is the only way to leave the island curse free.

Susan takes two sips. “It’s too strong for my taste. But good.” “You’re going to finish it all, right?” I ask, having downed my portion.

She shakes her head.

“But you have to,” I say. “Otherwise the curse will follow you off the island.”

The early afternoon sun seems to hover over her shoulders, the deep-blue lake sparkling behind her. I realise how foolish I sound, jabbering about some curse to a dying woman. She turns, looks out on Lake Como and is silent. 

Finally she says, “I’m beyond the reach of any curse.”
 

The towns along Como’s shores have constituted one of the world’s great silk centres since the 18th century, thanks to an abundant supply of water (needed to boil the silkworm cocoons for their silk fibres) and mulberry trees, which the silkworms feed on. Today Lake Como’s silk works supply such high-end fashion houses as Versace, Ungaro and Hermès.

“Silk helped turn this region into a destination of choice for those in need of rest and relaxation,” a visitor from Milan tells us one afternoon. “These days, I suppose there’s one man in particular to thank.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Ralph Lauren. He bought the silk for his clothes here when he first started his business.”

One century-old Como silk house, Mantero, frames its craft as “weaving emotions”. Susan and I have strolled past its headquarters and showroom on Via Volta in Lake Como’s provincial capital, also called Como, a few minutes’ drive south of Cernobbio.

Through the windows we make out a shimmering rainbow of silk scarves, ties and shawls. I’m ready to step in when Susan spots one of Como’s other gems, the 12th-century Basilica of San Fedele. Places that have stood the test of time now call to her.
 

Image via Adventure Women

“Let’s sit for a bit,” she says, pointing to a freshly painted wood bench.

Susan grabs my hand and rests it on her leg. “I need you to promise me something. Not for now, for after.”

I take a deep breath and find it hard to form words; all I do is nod.

“I want you to do the things you always talked about doing but never did,” she says. “The house on a lake you wanted. Buying the vineyard that will use up all your money. Just don’t let too much time pass before you do. Each day is like a year, as I found out the hard way. And I want you to be happy, as I always have been.”

“I don’t want to do any of that without you,” I say. “It won’t mean the same.”

“It’ll have to be without me,” Susan says. “That decision has been made.”

She leans against me and stares out at the lake. “Promise me that,” she whispers. “It’s one last promise.”

I kiss the top of her head and close my eyes. “I promise,” I whisper.
 

Image via Taipan 

We sit on the bench until late afternoon, temporarily setting aside our fears and concerns yet bracing for the reality that soon we’ll have no choice but to face them all head-on.

Lake Como is the perfect place to visit when starting a new chapter in life—a new romance, a marriage—or to enjoy the company of someone with whom you’ve shared much.

It also, I’m discovering with some pain, is a loving place to say goodbye. Susan and I find ourselves often gazing at the lake, compelled by its shape-shifting waters, shading from an ocean indigo to a deeper midnight blue.

We’re at its shores at sunrise, warm cups of coffee in hand, watching the first waves cross its surface. We make a point of being by it at sunset, when snow on the hillsides seems to melt right into the lake as the landscape slowly descends into darkness.

We also walk and talk a lot, going over the life we’ve shared, smiling about the many good times, shaking our heads at the mistakes made along the way. Other than shortness of breath, Susan shows no sign of the war being waged inside her body. The lake seems to lift her spirits and put her mind at ease.

“This time will stay with me always,” she murmurs one night, her voice soft. “People who live here are lucky to call it home. They wake to such a beautiful sight. It never leaves them.”

It’s as if time has frozen for us. The woman I love will forever be next to me, staring at the still, blue waters, talking about her hopes for our children, the plans she wants to make—and the places on Lake Como she still wants to see.