Lake Como from Milan

Lake Como day trips from Milan: three tours with a boat ride

If you’d rather not juggle train times and boat timetables, a day trip from Milan does it for you: a coach out to Lake Como, time on the water and a guide. The Lake Como tour we sell costs €89 and lasts about ten hours, leaving the Milan Visitor Center on Largo Cairoli at 8:30, with a boat ride on the lake, a guided walk around Como and a guide in English (or Spanish), plus an audio guide in eight languages. You can cancel it up to 24 hours ahead.

The first tour changes with the season. In summer it stops in Bellagio and the boat ride lasts about two hours; in winter the boat ride is about an hour and the tour takes the funicular up to Brunate instead. That funicular is closed for maintenance from 9 to 27 November 2026, and the listing doesn’t say what replaces it on those dates.

The other two go into Switzerland for Lugano and keep Bellagio all year. The one with a cruise on a private boat, at €60, leaves Piazza IV Novembre at 8:45 and stops in Bellagio for lunch. The guided tour, at €68, leaves Garibaldi station at 8:00 and is back at 17:30, in groups of up to 25, with an hour on a guided boat from Tremezzo and two and a half hours in Bellagio. Its listing says a passport is required, so take yours on either. Lunch isn’t included on any of the three.

Milan to Lake Como by train: Como San Giovanni, Como Lago or Varenna

Going on your own starts with a direct train, and the station decides where on the lake you begin. Como San Giovanni and Como Lago put you at the end of the lake, where the boat to Bellagio takes 41 minutes at the quickest; Varenna-Esino puts you halfway up the eastern shore, 15 minutes by ferry from Bellagio.

Direct trains from Milano Centrale reach Como San Giovanni in about 40 minutes, almost every hour, for a second-class single from €5.40 (Trenord, October 2026). The station is outside the centre, and you walk from there to the lakefront.

From Milano Cadorna, Trenord’s other line runs to Como Lago, the station by the lakefront and the funicular, in about an hour. We also sell a single between Milano Bovisa Politecnico and Como Lago, €5.20, and the one back.

None of these trains is on Milan’s city ticket, because Como and Varenna lie outside the Mi1–Mi3 zone, so the €2.20 metro ticket and the transport on the YesMilano passes stop short of the lake. Our page on Milan’s metro and public transport explains the zones.

Lake Como boats: fares from Como to Bellagio, and the Varenna ferry

The boats belong to Navigazione Laghi, the public lake service, and the fare goes by how far along the lake you travel. A slow boat from Como to Bellagio costs €12 one way, and the fast service adds a €5 supplement; a return costs double.

Get to the ticket office about 20 minutes before the boat. Buying on board costs €1 extra at piers with an open ticket office; bikes don’t go on the fast boats, and one bag of up to 60 cm travels free. Boats can be cancelled in bad weather.

From 2 November the lake runs on its winter timetable, until 14 March 2027, and the slow boats from Como to Bellagio drop to two a day, the 9:50 (at Bellagio 11:10) and the 10:50 (at Bellagio 12:35). Fast boats run at set times through the day and take 41 to 66 minutes. The last boat back from Bellagio to Como leaves at 18:20 from Monday to Saturday, and at 17:04 on Sundays and holidays.

The small ferry between Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio and Cadenabbia runs all year, with a reduced service on 25 December and 1 January. In winter the crossing from Bellagio to Varenna takes 15 minutes, with 18 a day on weekdays, the last at 21:00 (20:50 on Sundays).

Can you do Lake Como in a day? A train and boat loop from Milan

You can, and in winter a loop avoids racing the last boat back to Como: out by train to Como, up the lake by boat, across to Varenna and home on the Varenna train.

The same 9:50 boat carries on to Varenna, arriving at 11:25, if you’d rather start there and cross to Bellagio later. If you’d rather come home by boat than on the Varenna train, mind the last boat from Bellagio to Como, which leaves earlier on Sundays.

Lake Como in winter: the villas, Como’s Duomo and the Brunate funicular

In winter the villas are the catch. The gardens of Villa Melzi in Bellagio are closed from 2 November until late March 2027, while Villa Carlotta, a museum with a botanical garden at Tremezzo, and Villa del Balbianello at Lenno cut back to set days.

Villa Carlotta now opens only on the weekends of 14–15, 21–22 and 28–29 November and from 5 to 8 December, 10:00 to 16:00; entry is €17.50. Villa del Balbianello opens daily through November, 10:00 to 17:00, then only on set days from December to mid-March, and you have to book.

Villa Carlotta is 400 metres from the Tremezzo–Villa Carlotta pier, on the boats from Como. Villa del Balbianello, run by the Fondo Ambiente Italiano (FAI), is harder to reach: the public boat doesn’t stop there, so you walk about a kilometre uphill from Lenno, some 25 minutes partly on gravel and no good for pushchairs, or take a private taxi-boat from the Lido di Lenno. The park alone costs €15, and the villa and park €25, with the rooms shown on a 50-minute guided visit in Italian or English.

In Como itself, the Duomo has charged visitors since February 2025 for the transept, the sacristies and the balconies, while worshippers go in free. The paid part opens from Monday to Friday, 10:30 to 17:30, and on Saturdays from 10:45 to 16:30, and the tickets are sold at the Infopoint in the Broletto, on Via Pretorio.

The funicular up to Brunate has run since 11 November 1894, electric since 1911. Its office is on Piazza Alcide De Gasperi, and a single costs €3.70, a return €7.40.