Getting around Lake Como without a car: what you can really reach on foot and by ferry from the west shore
Almost everyone who books on Lake Como asks the same thing: can we manage without a car? The short answer is yes, and it depends almost entirely on where you stay. The lake is forty-five kilometres long and the road along it is narrow: sleeping in the wrong place means spending the holiday looking for parking.
This is not a guide to the ferries. It is a list of what you can actually reach on foot from Mezzegra, with distances measured along the real walking route — not in a straight line, which is the figure usually published and the one that regularly misleads.
What is within walking distance, with real numbers
The metres below follow the path you actually walk, bends included. The minutes assume an unhurried pace, not a brisk one.
- The first waymarked mountain trail: 60 metres from the gate
- Drinking fountain: 95 metres, 1 minute
- Local shop for everyday groceries: 356 metres, 5 minutes
- Bus stop: 412 metres, 5 minutes
- Lenno ferry landing: 1,292 metres, 17 minutes
- Larger supermarket: 1,994 metres, 27 minutes
- Tremezzo ferry landing: 2,426 metres, 32 minutes
- Pharmacy: 2,543 metres, 34 minutes
- Villa Carlotta ferry landing: 2,982 metres, 40 minutes
The Lenno landing changes everything
Seventeen minutes on foot separate the apartments from the Lenno pier. It is the number that matters most, because that is where the lake's other transport system begins.
From a west-shore landing you reach Bellagio, Varenna and Menaggio without ever starting the car. This is why the middle of the lake works as a base and the far ends do not: from here the three places everyone wants to see are one crossing away, not an hour of hairpins.
Timetables and fares change with the season and we do not reproduce them here — they would be wrong within a month. Check them on the Navigazione Laghi site the evening before a day out.
Villa del Balbianello and Villa Carlotta
These are the two villas nearly everyone wants to see, and both are on our side of the lake.
Balbianello is about thirty minutes on foot from the Lenno landing, along the promontory. If you would rather skip the climb, a small boat shuttle runs from the Lenno lakefront. Villa Carlotta is forty minutes on foot from here, or one stop by ferry.
Tickets, opening times and closing days are on the FAI and Villa Carlotta websites. Again, we do not publish numbers that change.
The Greenway, if you enjoy walking
The Greenway del Lago di Como passes thirty-six metres from here and runs eleven kilometres through villages, old mule tracks and gardens between Colonno and Cadenabbia. It is the pleasantest way to move between neighbouring villages without the main road.
One honest warning: it is passable with a pushchair, but the descent from Via Pola towards Lenno is steep and wants taking slowly. With a small child it is better to know that beforehand.
When you still want a car
Here is the part the guidebooks skip. Without a car the pharmacy is thirty-four minutes away on foot, which is a long way with flu. The same goes for a big shop: the nearby store covers bread and milk, not filling a fridge on arrival.
Trips beyond the middle of the lake — Como itself, the Lecco branch, the Valtellina — also want a car, or a great deal of patience with timetables. And in the evening, as the boats thin out, the car becomes convenient again.
The good news is that leaving it parked costs nothing: every apartment has its own reserved, monitored parking space, and there is no restricted-traffic zone to cross on the way in. You park on arrival day and pick the key up again when you leave.
How a week without driving actually works
The pattern that works is simple: do the shopping on the afternoon you arrive, while you are still in the car, then leave it parked. Alternate days on the water — Bellagio, Varenna, Menaggio, one at a time — with days on foot between the villas, the Greenway and the trails climbing to the high meadows.
Arriving by train, you get off at Como or Varenna and continue by boat or bus: the stop is five minutes from here. We do not publish connections and frequencies because they change, but at check-in we will tell you how things stand that week.