A September Day at Villa Balbiano: the Boat, the Chef, the Quiet Lake

Most writing about this lake is a list of places. A good Lake Como itinerary in September is not a list at all — a Lake Como itinerary that works is a rhythm, and the rhythm is set by the water.

What follows is one day, hour by hour, in the largest private residence on Lake Como. Not a suggested route between attractions: an actual account of how a staffed day on the western shore assembles itself, and why the version that happens in September is the one worth planning a year around.

Why September rewrites the Lake Como itinerary

The lake has two seasons and they are nothing alike. From late June to the end of August it is a destination with a queue attached — the ferries full, the gardens on timed entry, the lakeside road nose to tail at noon. Then the first week of September passes and the whole thing exhales.

Three things change at once, and together they are why any Lake Como itinerary is better in this month than in July. The water is at its warmest of the year, having absorbed heat since June — swimming off a dock at eight in the morning in mid-September is a pleasure, not an act of courage. The light lengthens and drops: the amber hour that arrives around six and holds until eight is the reason the northern Italian lakes were painted rather than merely visited. And the boats become available. In August every skipper on the lake is committed; from the second week of September, the good ones have days.

That last point matters more than it sounds. On a lake with one narrow road down each shore, a boat is not an excursion. It is the transport.

8:00 — Where a Lake Como itinerary should begin

The day begins on the terrace, which at Villa Balbiano sits above the lake with formal terraced gardens dropping to the water and nothing between. In September the mist sits on the surface until about half past eight and then lifts in a single movement.

Breakfast is served rather than laid out: the household knows by day two who takes coffee and who takes tea, who eats at eight and who appears at ten. This is the first place a staffed house separates itself from a rented one — nobody in the party has decided anything, and nobody will for the rest of the day unless they want to.

The practical note for anyone building a Lake Como itinerary of their own: eat early. The lake is at its stillest before nine, and the difference between a boat leaving at ten and one leaving at noon is the difference between an empty lake and a busy one.

10:00 — The tender, and the centre of the Lake Como itinerary

The boat is the centre of the day and the reason the western shore is worth the premium. Villa Balbiano has its own water frontage and private dock; the tender comes alongside, the household loads towels and a cool box, and the group is on the lake within a few minutes of deciding to be.

Where you go depends on the day, but the standard September circuit runs like this. North first along the Tremezzina, past the terraced gardens that make this shore what it is, then across to Bellagio for a coffee at the fork of the lake and back down the western side. Or north again, to the narrows where the mountains close in and the water goes glassy.

Most commercial lake como boat tours run a version of this route on a fixed schedule with thirty other people aboard. The private version differs in the only way that matters: you stop where the swimming looks good. In the middle of the lake, in the second week of September, the water is around 24°C and there is nobody within half a kilometre.

For groups without a private dock, chartering is straightforward — the lake has good skippers and September availability, and a full-day charter with a driver is the single upgrade we recommend most on Como. But the villas with their own boathouse remove the arranging entirely, which is the point.

13:30 — The chef, in the boathouse

Lunch happens where the day left you. On the days the group stays out, the household packs properly — not sandwiches, but a cold lunch built that morning: vitello tonnato, a rice salad, peaches, a bottle of something from the Valtellina kept cold in the box.

On the days the boat comes back, lunch is in the boathouse. This is the detail guests remember six months later. The old lakeside villas were built with vaulted darsene at water level — arched, cool, half in shadow, with the lake slapping quietly against the stone a metre from the table. In August the boathouse is too humid to use comfortably. In September it is the best room in the house.

The chef works the local markets: lake fish — missoltini, agone, lavarello — from the villages up the shore, Alpine cheeses from the Valtellina an hour north, figs and late peaches from the Brianza. A serious Lake Como itinerary should hold at least two lunches at home for this reason alone. The restaurants on this lake are good; the boathouse is better, and it does not require getting back into a car.

16:00 — The hour to leave empty

The afternoon is deliberately unplanned, and in a well-run house it stays that way.

For groups who want to move, this is the hour for the gardens of the western shore, most of which are faster to reach by tender than by road and all of which are walkable without queuing once the season turns. For everyone else, this is the hour a Lake Como itinerary should leave blank: the pool, the shade, and the specific pleasure of a lake that has gone quiet. The ferries still cross. The occasional boat passes. Nothing else asks anything.

19:00 — The hour the whole Lake Como itinerary is built around

Then the light arrives, and this is the part of a September Lake Como itinerary that no summer week can offer.

The sun drops behind the western ridge around seven, which means the eastern shore and the mountains above it turn amber while the western shore where you are sitting falls into a cool blue shadow. It lasts about forty minutes. Aperitivo is served on the terrace and conversation tends to stop for a few minutes, which the household expects and works around.

Dinner is at nine, either at the house or in one of the villages. In September the kitchens still have tables; by the first week of October some of them will have closed for the winter.

Building your own Lake Como itinerary around this one

Not every group takes a house with a boathouse, and the shape above still holds without one. Three adjustments make it work.

Book the skipper before the restaurant. On a lake where the road is the slow route, the boat determines what is reachable and when. Groups who fix dinner first and the water second end up driving. A Lake Como itinerary that starts from the charter calendar rather than the restaurant calendar is a materially better week.

Put the gardens in the morning or skip them. The great gardens of the western shore are all at their best before eleven, and all of them are reached faster by water than by road. Any Lake Como itinerary that schedules a garden at two in the afternoon is scheduling a queue.

Keep two lunches at home. The boathouse — or the terrace, in houses without one — is the meal guests remember, and it costs nothing but a chef who shopped that morning. Building a whole Lake Como itinerary around restaurants is the most common mistake made on this lake.

The houses this day happens in

Villa Balbiano is the largest private residence on Lake Como: a sixteenth-century palace on the Tremezzina with formal terraced gardens running to its own water frontage, frescoed salons, a private dock, and room for around twenty-eight guests. It runs as a fully staffed private house rather than a monument. Readers may recognise it from House of Gucci, which filmed here.

Villa Sola Cabiati at Tremezzina runs the same model at family scale — six suites for twelve adults and two children, Tiepolo-school frescoes untouched since the 1700s, Venetian mosaic floors, a heated pool in the Italian garden and a private dock. The household is 24-hour butler service, daily housekeeping with turndown, a private chef and breakfast served daily, with spa, tennis and private beach access included next door.

Villa Lenisia at Lenno is the contemporary version: six bedrooms for twelve, an infinity pool cut toward the lake, an outdoor Jacuzzi and sauna, and a lower entertainment level with a pool table, bar and gym. Breakfast is prepared daily by a private chef between seven and half past ten, housekeeping runs two hours a day, and Bellagio is a short boat ride across the water.

All three sit in our Lake Como collection and all three belong to the fully staffed villas standard that makes a day like the one above possible without anybody organising it. If the shore itself is still the open question, our comparison of Bellagio, Cernobbio and Tremezzina is the place to start.

What the household actually does

The Lake Como itinerary described above contains perhaps forty separate decisions, and the guests made four of them. That gap is the product.

The property manager holds the week: the skipper’s schedule, the garden bookings, the restaurant table at nine, the driver for the airport. The chef shops before the group is awake and builds the menu around what the markets had, confirming by mid-morning. Housekeeping turns the rooms while everybody is on the water — in a staffed house the rooms are never serviced in front of the guests. And the butler, in the houses that have one, is the person who noticed on day one that a member of the party swims before breakfast and has had a towel on the dock every morning since.

None of this appears in a listing. It is the entire difference between a beautiful building and a week nobody had to run.

Frequently asked questions

How many days should a Lake Como itinerary run? Five to seven. Three is enough to see the lake and not enough to settle into it; the households we place hit their rhythm on day two, which is when a Lake Como itinerary starts paying off.

Are lake como boat tours worth booking, or should we charter privately? Scheduled tours are fine for a first look and poor for a stay. A private charter with a skipper — or better, a villa with its own dock and tender — lets you stop where the swimming is good and come back when the light goes. September availability is good; August is committed by spring.

Is the water warm enough to swim in September? Yes, and warmer than June. The lake holds around 24°C into late September, having absorbed heat all summer.

How far is Milan from the western shore? Roughly ninety minutes by road to Malpensa, an hour to Linate. Helicopter transfers are straightforward and cut it to about fifteen minutes.

What does a fully staffed Lake Como itinerary actually include? In the houses above: property manager, chef, daily housekeeping and breakfast as the baseline, with butler, drivers, skipper and childcare arranged to specification. Provisioning is generally billed against actuals.

Can a Lake Como itinerary work for a group of twenty or more? On this lake, only in a handful of houses — which is why Villa Balbiano exists in the portfolio. Most Como estates cap around twelve to fourteen guests.

The day, in one sentence

Breakfast served, the tender at ten, the boathouse at half past one, the afternoon left empty, and the amber hour at seven. That is the Lake Como itinerary September was built for — and a Lake Como itinerary of that shape only works if somebody else is holding the calendar.

Request a Tailored Selection — tell us your group, your dates and how much of the week you want on the water, and a concierge will return a staffed shortlist with the skipper and the chef already matched to it, usually within one business day.