Swimming in Lake Como from Mezzegra: where you can get in the water, and what we admit we don't know
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Anyone booking a place on Lake Como expects to swim in it, and often finds on arrival that it is less obvious than it looks: the shore is stones, the beaches are few, and not all of them are as easy to reach as you imagine. Here is what we actually know from Mezzegra, and what we prefer not to write.
This is not a ranking of the lake's beaches. It is a starting point from one specific address, with a single measured figure and everything else stated for what it is.
Lido di Lenno: a 21-minute walk
The nearest place to swim that we can give a number for is the Lido di Lenno: 1,595 metres from the residence gate, 21 minutes on foot at an easy pace, measured along the walking route rather than as the crow flies. For comparison, the Lenno ferry pier is 13 minutes away: the Lido lies beyond the landing, on the waterfront.
The limit needs saying up front: that is 21 minutes each way, and the return is uphill because the lake sits lower than Mezzegra. With a towel, a tired child and the afternoon heat, it is not a stroll to take lightly. If walking like that is not for you, our article on getting around the lake without a car shows how else to move.
What the shore is like: stones, with some sand
The lake is not the sea. Navigazione Laghi describes the shore at Lenno as having an area of fine sand and an area of pebbles and rocks, which matches what you find nearly everywhere on the western shore: getting in often means stepping on stones. Water shoes are practical advice, not a requirement.
We do not publish the water temperature: it changes from week to week, from a windy day to a sunny one, and a figure written today would be wrong in a month. The same goes for depth and the lake bed: we have no measurements of our own and we will not invent them.
Who checks the water, and where to look
Bathing water quality is neither an opinion nor our judgement. During the season ATS Insubria takes the samples, and the results are published on the Italian Ministry of Health's Portale Acque, where each sampling point has its own classification (excellent, good, sufficient or poor). In Tremezzina the monitored points include the water in front of the Lido di Lenno: for today's situation, look there, not at an article written weeks ago.
A ban can also be temporary. In July 2026, for example, the municipality of Tremezzina lifted by ordinance dated 24 July a bathing ban on the stretch of lake in front of the Torrente Bolvedro mouth (Mila beach), after a supplementary sample taken by ATS Insubria. It says nothing about any one place: it is simply how the system works, an ordinance when needed and a revocation once the values are back in range. Notices appear on the municipality's website and on the Portale Acque.
What we don't write, and why
Whether the Lido charges admission or is free, with what services and what hours, we do not state. Its management has not always been the same: in July 2024 the municipality made it temporarily free while waiting to award it to a new operator. If a detail changes with a tender, an article written today cannot promise to be right tomorrow. Ask the Tremezzina municipality or the operator.
Nor do we write that any area is safe. The lake has wind, currents near stream mouths and a bed that drops away quickly: caution belongs to whoever gets in the water, not to whoever writes a guide.
When you don't feel like walking: the pool
Inside the property there is the shared pool, open from April to the end of October. It does not replace the lake and does not pretend to: it is the answer to the afternoon when nobody wants forty-two minutes there and back. How it works at the height of the season is in the article on the lake in summer.
Anyone coming late in the season should do a simple sum: the pool is open until the end of October, but the lake in autumn is not the lake of August and the days are shorter. To choose your dates, see the page on the lake's seasons.
In short
- Lido di Lenno: 1,595 metres, 21 minutes on foot from the gate, return uphill
- Shore of stones with some sand: water shoes are useful
- Water quality: ATS Insubria and the Ministry of Health's Portale Acque
- Bans and revocations: Tremezzina municipality website
- Residence pool: open April to the end of October
Swimming in the lake from here is possible and worth it, but it asks two things guides often skip: knowing you will walk, and checking the water the same day. The rest, from temperature to Lido prices, we leave to whoever holds up-to-date data.
