Discover the villas from the shore of Lake Como

A suggestive walk along the western shore of the bay of Como allows you to admire numerous residences built between 700 and 800. 

In 1959 the city administration decided to create a “romantic walk” by taking away from these villas access to the lake and giving citizens a splendid pedestrian street full of beautiful landscape views and elegant architectural works.

• Villa Scacchi-Carminati, designed in 1787 by the architect “Felice Soave”, is a small villa of elegant proportions, decorated with a double loggia and crowned with statues and cherubs.
• Villa Saporiti, today the seat of the Province, was built between 1790 and 1793; it is called “La Rotonda” because the lake façade is characterized by a central hall, elliptical in shape, which emerges from the rest of the building. Performed on a design by Leopoldo Pollack, it is decorated on the outside by various water deities.
• Still the property of the Province is the subsequent Villa Gallia built in 1614 by the abbot Marco Gallio on the site of the 16th century Jovian museum, built by Paolo Giovio to house his collection of portraits of Illustrious Men (now partly exhibited in the Civic Picture Gallery). 
• The structure is simple, characterized by a portico with three arches.     Lush gardens surround these mansions that continue with Villa Parravicini Revel, with monumental neoclassical architecture and a beautiful Italian garden.
• Villa Volonté consists of two symmetrical bodies, culminating in pediments decorated with bas-reliefs and statues, and connected by a porch to the veranda.
• At the end of the promenade stands majestic Villa Olmo, masterpiece of the architect Simone Cantoni, commissioned by the Marquis Innocenzo Odescalchi in neoclassical style. 

It passed into the ownership of the noble Raimondi and then of the Visconti di Modrone, who transformed it and enriched it and gave it to the Municipality of Como in 1924. 

The villa with its beautiful Italian garden on the front and the rear English park is home to remarkable art exhibitions.

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