Travel
Villa Carlotta is one of the most famous villas around Lake Como in Italy. This aristocratic villa build at the end of the 1600's dominates the waters of the lake from the slopes of the hill. Nestled in between Cadenabbia and Tremezzo and only a short walk from the Tremezzo ferry stop, Villa Carlotta is well known because of its works of art and its vast park full of exotic trees and colorful flowers. From the villa's terrace, you can catch a glimpse of one of the most beautiful panoramas of Lake Como with a view on Bellagio.
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Travel
Villa Carlotta. Luxury and Drama on the Lake
While in the last century some of Lake Como's villas have been turned into luxury hotels, offering their guests a piece of heaven-on-the-lake, others are closed to the public entirely and only open for seasonal business conventions and other pre-arrangedn gatherings. But Villa Carlotta opens its gates to the public all year round. The entry fee is 8euro, kind of pricey if you don't visit in spring when the garden is at its best, but then again, Villa Carlotta is thought by many to be the best villa there is on Lake Como so once you visit this one, you know it can't get any better.
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| The fish pond in front of Villa Carlotta |
Villa Carlotta is a place of rare beauty, where masterpieces of nature and art live together in perfect harmony in over 70.000 square metres of gardens and museum. The grounds of the villa are like a secret garden nestling on the shores of the lake, where one can easily loose the track of time for a couple of hours.
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| View from Villa Carlotta's balcony |
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| View from Villa Carlotta's balcony |
The History of Villa Carlotta
Villa Carlotta was built for the Marchese Clerici as a summer home away from Milan. The 18th century gardens were laid out in the former classical italian style. The neoclassical villa stands above three terraces linked to the lake along the central axis by a series of double stairways with imposing balustrades. At the end of the 1700's the villa was inherited by Giovanni Sommariva, a Milanese patron of arts, politician, entrepreneur of the Napoleonic era, who enlarged the park and updated the villa with neoclassical stucco work and a clock added to the roofline. Thanks to him the villa attained the summit of its splendour and became one of the most important halting-place of the Grand Tour.
The property was sold by his heirs in the mid 1800's to Princess Marianne of Prussia who gave it to her daughter Carlotta (from whom the villa takes its current name) on her marriage to Prince George of Sax-Meiningen. Unfortunately the couple spent little time here as Carlotta was pregnant almost all the time during her short life as a married woman. After the premature death of Carlotta her family devoted much attention to the gardens. Lots of exotic trees like palms, eucalyptus, magnolias, sequoias, were planted along lanes. The layout today is much as it was at the beginning of the World War I when it was confiscated by the Italian state.
The property was sold by his heirs in the mid 1800's to Princess Marianne of Prussia who gave it to her daughter Carlotta (from whom the villa takes its current name) on her marriage to Prince George of Sax-Meiningen. Unfortunately the couple spent little time here as Carlotta was pregnant almost all the time during her short life as a married woman. After the premature death of Carlotta her family devoted much attention to the gardens. Lots of exotic trees like palms, eucalyptus, magnolias, sequoias, were planted along lanes. The layout today is much as it was at the beginning of the World War I when it was confiscated by the Italian state.
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| Villa Carlotta's gardens |
Villa Carlotta welcomes its visitors with three esences: the Eighteenth Century Italian garden overlooking the lakeside; the mid-Nineteenth Century English garden; the Nineteenth century botanical garden which has given the villa international fame. In the garden you can also find an Agriculture Museum, but don't get all enthusiastic as there's not much to it. My grandparents could have open it.
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| Villa Carlotta's gardens |
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| Villa Carlotta's gardens |
Villa Carlotta draws crowds especialy in April and May when it offers visitors an authentic sea of blooms of over 150 different varieties of multi-colored rhododendrons and azaleas scatered in tall rounded clumps. But the gardens are worth a visit in every period of the year as they are lush and beautifully kept. Old varieties of camellias, century old cedars and sequoias, the pagodas of citrus trees and tropical plants, the rock garden and the ferns valley, the Rhododendrons wood and the Bamboos garden, the waterfall, and the wonderful views on Lake Como make out of this gardens an ideal place for a picnic with a view as there are plenty of spots where you can just seat and take in the scenery.
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| Villa Carlotta's gardens |
The villa itself is worth looking inside to see the marble sculptures and paintings on display. I actually found it to be more like a small museum than a residence, because it doesn't have much furniture, though it has some very nice ceilings. The museum inside Villa Carlotta is dedicated to neoclassical art such as statues by Canova; paintings by Appiani and Hayez, gobelins tapestries. Among the most important works of art are "The Last Kiss of Romeo And Juliet" by Francesco Hayez and the statue of "Amore and Psyche", a 1824 copy by AdamoTadolini of the original made by Canova.
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| Marble statue inside Villa Carlotta |
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- Lake Como, The Garden Of The Gods
View of Varenna, Lake Como Mark Twain once said that God made Italy from designs by Michaelangelo. If this is true, then I bet when He got to the Alps and he sprinkled them with twinkleing lakes he did it all by Himself, as this is no man's work....