How do you get to Villa d'Este from Milan?

By car, 35 miles from the Duomo, 53 minutes without traffic. By train, from Milano Cadorna to Como Lago, every thirty minutes, then a short drive or the ferry to the Cernobbio pier, five minutes on foot from the hotel.

What is the floating pool at Villa d'Este?

A heated pool moored on the lake and reached by a wooden walkway, part of the Sporting Club, which opened in 1966 with the lake's first floating pool. It holds about 11,900 gallons and is open from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Which building should I ask for at Villa d'Este?

The Queen's Pavilion: 27 rooms with balconies and terraces on the lake, named for Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, who owned the villa from 1815 to 1820.

How much is a room at Villa d'Este?

From €1,150 a night for a Classic room, which looks over the courtyard, and from €1,390 for a Deluxe room on the lake side (rates published in November 2026).

Is this the Villa d'Este near Rome?

No. This Villa d'Este is a hotel in Cernobbio, on Lake Como; the villa and gardens of the same name near Rome are at Tivoli.

Villa d'Este, Lake Como: a pool floating on the lake

Villa d’Este stands at the water’s edge in Cernobbio, on Lake Como, about an hour from Milan. A cardinal had it built as his summer house in 1568; it has been a hotel since 1873. It is a large hotel, and a formal one, and it is at its best on a weekend, taken in order: one train, one boat, one pool that floats, one bar that has poured for a century and a half.

Friday, by rail

Cadorna, then the ferry

Trains leave Milano Cadorna for Como Lago every thirty minutes. The station sits on the lakefront. From there the hotel is 3.5 miles by car, eleven minutes, or you can take the ferry or the hydrofoil along the shore to the Cernobbio pier, five minutes on foot from the gate.

By car from the Duomo, it is 35 miles, 53 minutes without traffic; a Friday evening adds to that. Leave the car with the hotel: parking is free for guests. Either way, you are at Via Regina 40 in time for dinner. The hotel also has its own dock and a helipad, if you would rather arrive another way.

In summer, eat lightly on Friday at Il Platano, on its lakeside terrace, where the cooking is half Mediterranean, half Japanese. Keep the Veranda for Saturday.

A boathouse arch under purple wisteria, a wooden rowing boat with hoops on the landing, the lake at the end of the pergola.

Friday, the Queen’s Pavilion

Ask for the red building

The hotel has 151 rooms in two buildings. The Cardinal’s Building, designed in 1568 by Pellegrino Pellegrini, holds 124 of them, with the lobby, the Veranda restaurant and Bar Canova. The Queen’s Pavilion holds 27.

Ask for the Pavilion. It was built in 1856, painted in red trompe-l’oeil, and named for Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, who owned the villa from 1815 to 1820. It was first called the Hotel de la Reine d’Angleterre. Its rooms look at the lake from balconies and private terraces.

Rooms start at €1,150 a night for a Classic room, which looks onto the courtyard. For the lake, a Deluxe starts at €1,390, a Junior Suite Lake View at €2,190. Ask for the lake, then ask for the Pavilion.

The hotel also rents four houses in its park. The smallest, the Mosaic House, has one bedroom and opens onto the Mosaic garden through a private courtyard. The largest, Villa Garrovo, has six. Villa Cima, built by Caroline of Brunswick herself, is the only one on the water.

The Queen's Pavilion: a red and ochre trompe-l'oeil façade against a green hillside, red flowers along the path. A Junior Suite with a lake view: a tall window, a crystal chandelier, two leopard-print stools at the foot of the bed.

Saturday, afloat

The pool on the lake

At half past nine, walk down to the Sporting Club. It opened in 1966 with the first floating pool on Lake Como, and the pool is still the point: a heated basin of about 11,900 gallons on a teak-decked platform, moored off the shore and reached by a wooden walkway. It is open until seven. Children under twelve swim with an adult.

The pool at Villa d’Este does not overlook the lake. It floats on it.

Lunch is next door, at the Sundeck: Mediterranean plates and cocktails, for hotel guests only. From half past eleven the Sporting Club runs water-skiing, €80 for ten minutes.

The floating pool at dusk: lit blue water, a wooden deck and white railings, the hotel glowing on the shore behind.

Saturday, under way

An hour in a Riva

In the afternoon, take the lake from the water. The Sporting Club keeps Ernesto Riva motorboats, at €250 an hour, from half past nine to half past six. An hour is enough. You drive it yourself: the hotel’s Italian brochure lists them as self-drive, 40 horsepower.

If you would rather stay dry, the hotel’s golf club is 8.7 miles away, at Montorfano: eighteen holes, par 69, laid out in 1926. The tennis courts are closer: eight of them, six in clay, with a view of the lake.

The pool deck in daylight: striped blue loungers, a cream parasol, the lake and the far shore close behind.

Saturday, Bar Canova

The same bar since 1873

Bar Canova has poured since the hotel opened, in 1873. It is open from ten in the morning until midnight. In good weather it moves out to a terrace on the lake, under chestnut trees; in the winter season it serves a full afternoon tea, with pastries, savories and a glass of champagne; the rest of the year, tea comes with biscuits baked that day. A pianist plays from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m., then from ten until midnight, and until half past twelve on Saturdays.

From six o’clock the hotel asks for cocktail attire on its English page and smart casual on its Italian one: dress for the first. At dinner, men are asked for long pants and closed shoes. Dinner is at the Veranda, in the Cardinal’s Building, where Andrea Guerini became executive chef in 2026; the wine list has grown, under Alex Bartoli, from 300 labels to more than 10,000. Between April and October there is also the Grill, a short walk from the Queen’s Pavilion, which serves dinner in the garden in summer, under century-old trees.

Bar Canova: blue and gold carpet, yellow armchairs, marble columns, a white statue by the window, the bar at the far end. A table on the lakeside terrace: two cocktails, small plates, a red flower bed, the lake behind the railing.

Sunday, on foot, then by water

The Mosaic, and the Rusco

Give the morning to the park: 25 acres, a national historical monument since 1913, with the Temple of Telemachus, the Fountain of Hercules and the Mosaic, a nymphaeum of colored stone at the foot of a long green ramp. The park belongs to the Grandi Giardini Italiani, the network of Italy’s great gardens.

The Mosaic: two pavilions of inlaid stone and pebble, clipped box hedges and red flowers in front, a green ramp rising between them.

Then leave by water. Ask the concierge for the Rusco, the hotel’s wooden water limousine, which runs guests between the villa and the center of Como. Guido Abbate built it in 1958 for the Prefecture of Como, and it carried Winston Churchill and Konrad Adenauer. His grandson led its restoration, begun in 2025, with mahogany brought from South Africa; it carries up to nine. In Como, the group’s Palazzo Venezia has a rooftop restaurant, Altariva, for lunch. Como Lago station is on the lakefront, and the trains to Cadorna run every half hour.

When to come: in summer. The Grill opens from April to October, and Il Platano and the Sundeck are summer places too; the weekend above needs all three. The hotel’s calendar runs into winter, this year with a Thanksgiving dinner on November 26 and jazz nights until January.

One warning, and one tip. On May 21, 2027, the Concorso d’Eleganza fills the villa, as it has every May since 1929: book early, or choose another weekend. And if you want the lake in winter, a smaller house a few minutes up the shore stays open: Passalacqua, at Moltrasio.

Il Rusco, a varnished wooden motor launch, crossing dark water in front of a wooded shore.