﻿Italy has so many beautiful towns, it's hard to pick among them and rank the best. But very often,
Bellagio sits on top of that list. Located in the Lake District in the north of Italy on Lake Como,
it is one of the world's most beautiful destinations that you would really enjoy visiting.
The poet Shelley called it "the loveliest town in the world." And Mark Twain described it as a
"beauty out of heaven itself." It is a picturesque wonderland, most famous for its staircase streets,
and they lead up to an upper-level shopping street. So you can go up, across, back down again,
just wander at will. It's a little bit of effort, but the steps are pretty shallow,
quite easy to climb these steps. You'll find many scenic places for those all-important selfies.
It's a small village just 200 meters from one end to the other. But within that area, there are
many little lanes to go wandering on. Bellagio is considered one of the most picturesque places in
Italy, often referred to as the "Pearl of Lake Como," due to its stunning natural beauty and
charming atmosphere. The old town is characterized by narrow streets and picturesque, winding alleys,
most of them staircases lined with charming shops, cafes and restaurants. It's a great
place to wander and explore. The town's layout is reminiscent of a typical medieval village
with steep and irregularly shaped streets that climb up the hillside, with the rounded
cobblestone paving that is quite easy to walk on. The Bellagio waterfront promenade offers stunning
views of Lake Como and is lined with more of these charming shops, hotels and restaurants.
There are these lovely cafes along the arcades the Bellagio. You want to sit down and have a snack,
maybe have lunch right here. Here's a great place to take a break. Adding to the allure,
biology of town is this scenic location and along the shores of Lake Como, surrounded by mountains.
You can get here by a boat, and the boat can take you to other villages around the lake as well. But
certainly you want to spend a lot of time here in Bellagio. The lakefront promenade through these
porticos is one of the most important streets, with many shops and restaurants. If Bellagio
was only another typical Italian town with a pedestrian zone, with pretty pastel colored
buildings, and a flat terrain, it would be just another picturesque village. However,
with the staircase lanes going up the hill, it makes it something very special magical,
unique. You do have to put in a little effort to climb those steps, but it's easy.
If you cannot climb, there are some streets that will take you gradually around to the top.
On the map, we see the two main streets, one along the waterfront and a parallel street inland. We'll
walk along them during the program. But for now, a quick preview. The porticos along the waterfront,
and the upper lane, Garibaldi, the main street of town. These two lanes are connected by nine
pedestrian lanes that are mostly staircases. Salita Serbelloni is the busiest and most
picturesque, so if you only have time or energy for one staircase, make it this one. And there
are two more of the main staircase streets Salita Mella and Monastero, both of them quite lovely to
walk on. That's five main lanes altogether. So if you don't have enough time in your visit to see
everything, focus on those main streets. However, you'll find that all of those lanes are a lot of
fun to walk on. If you cannot handle staircases, then take via Roma for a more gentle route that
will bring you up the hill. And then you could easily walk down one of those scenic staircases.
These winding hillside lanes are so beautiful, you would probably enjoy walking every bit of them,
with a complete route covering about two kilometers. And the hill is not very steep.
However, to take full advantage of your visit, I suggest that you walk each of those major lanes
round-trip. Yes. Back and forth, uphill and downhill. That way you'll have twice as much
fun. And after all the sights that you'll find along a street always look a little different
when you return back in the opposite direction, making it a round-trip. If you walk back and
forth on each staircase, it doubles your distance to four kilometers or two and a half miles, which
means you could see all of town in about 2 hours in this wonderfully complete route. In that way,
you are getting the most out of this opportunity to explore such a magical place. Of course,
you'll want to add in some more time for popping into the shops and having snacks and then maybe
having lunch, so you can look forward to a wonderful half-day at least to discover Bellagio.
We are now walking along that upper lane, via Garibaldi, with those staircases coming up to
it from down by the lakeshore. And this street is really the longest and most important commercial
street in town. It has the most shops and restaurants, and it's quite level easy to walk.
From here, you can plunge down any of those little side lanes back to the lakefront. Let's take a
stroll down Selita Mella, one of those three main staircase streets pointed out earlier. And here we
see the upper level, rather than a staircase, it's a gentle ramp. You've got cobbles on the sides and
nice flagstones in the middle for very secure footing, with outdoor cafes offering food and
wine. And just ahead, a little shopping alcove showcasing the boutique, Pierangelo Masciadri,
featuring scarves, ties, accessories with fashion as a vehicle to transmit cultural messages. There
are a few more shops scattered along Selita Mella, and some private homes and apartments, some of
which are available for rent on a short-term basis. And now, towards the bottom of Selita
Mella, we've got steps. It's become that staircase street, and it's still very easy to walk on with
excellent cobblestone paving. If we're following my advice, we could turn around and walk back up
Selita Mella, gaining that reverse perspective, which we'll do a little bit later. But first
we're heading back down to the promenade along the lake, and then up the main staircase street.
I imagine there are some timid visitors who only stay down here at the lake level along the
porticos. They'll take a look up at the staircases and go, "Oh, no, I'm not climbing that." But one
of the main reasons to come here is to enjoy these wonderful staircases. When you arrived in
Bellagio the first staircase street you're going to see is the biggest and best of all of them,
Salita Serbelloni. If you're only going to walk one staircase, let this be the one. The town's
layout is reminiscent of a typical medieval village with steep and irregularly shaped
streets that climb up the hillside. But here it's somewhat unique with that lakefront setting and
the large number of staircase streets, it makes a great place to just wander and explore.
The Lake Como area is famous for silk. Production of silk has a long and storied history in the city
of Como, located nearby on the other side of the lake. It has been a center of silk
production since the early Middle Ages, when Silk was introduced to Europe via the Silk Road
from China. The legend says that silkworms were smuggled out of China and brought to
the eastern Mediterranean by two merchants who were disguised as priests. However, it was not
until the 16th century that silk production in Como began to flourish. The Duke of Milan had
planted vast amounts of mulberry trees to feed those hungry worms, and there was abundant lake
water to help in the processing, making Como, the silk capital of Italy and one of the world's major
producers. Salita Serbelloni is just 125 meters long, so you'll soon arrive at the top -- a good
place for pictures and a nice view looking back down the steps. Here we have a typical scene,
with a wine bar on the left and a restaurant across the street from it, Trattoria San Giacomo,
perched right at the top of the staircase, with a nice view looking out. The restaurant gets
good ratings in social media and it's very popular, but they don't take reservations,
so you might have to wait a while, maybe over at that wine bar, or go in a non-peak time,
or just pick one of the many other restaurants available. This lady and her dog must be
experienced staircase walkers, otherwise it could be a bit of a itangle and a trip with that leash.
As we walked down that same Salita Serbelloni in the opposite direction, we can test my proposal
that streets look different when you're returning along that same route, and the passing parade of
people is always filled with variety, as you walk along. For the devoted shoppers, you might want
to walk up and down the same street several times to make sure you didn't miss anything.
You might notice the cobblestones are wet after a brief passing shower, but they're not slippery.
They're so well made, you'll have great traction even after the rain, with smooth round surfaces,
very comfortable underfoot. You can get to Bellagio on your own by driving, or from the city
of nearby Como, you could take a boat or a bus. They each take about 45 minutes with a price under
10 euro. Or you could take a one-hour train ride from Milan to Varrena on the shores of Lake Como,
and then a 15-minute ferry ride to Bellagio, as we'll show you in our other video about Varrena,
another beautiful Lake Como village, but much smaller than Bellagio. In our case,
we came with my group in a private tour, coming here on a day trip from Milan with our guide
taking us for an orientation walk. "What we do now is to make a tour in Bellagio. So follow me
and we make the circle. We are right in front of the town now. And now I am in the lake.
Oh, no. Sorry. I'm no more in the lake. But until a couple of centuries ago, here we had the lake.
Because we are right in front of the portico. You see this long tunnel here? This is the
famous portico of Bellagio. A portico was the center of the life of the town.
In the portico, the fishermen, they were collecting their boats here, the fishing boats,
they were selling the fish to the people, and they were repairing the nets, the boats and everything.
So they would spend the whole day here. So the portico is being always the center part of every
town, not just of Bellagio, every single town, every single village we have on our lakes have
a portico or had the portico. In many towns now it's disappeared. In Bellagio, it's still there,
but as you can see now is full with shops. But originally, maybe they had the small rooms where
they were living, or they had their tools for the fishing, and so on. Maybe they had the animals.
Donkeys were very popular here, and they still had cows until about one century ago."
We walked along with our guide from the boat and bus station area into the town. So these
are some of the first sights you'll see upon arriving in Bellagio, rows of shops,
with a few hotels and restaurants along the waterfront promenade. "So as you can see,
we have steps, many steps, step steps. The people here live on steps from the cradle to the grave,
we say. And maybe that's one of the reasons why the people have got this longevity here. People
live longer, or maybe because we drink a lot of extra virgin olive oil. We put it
everywhere you know." We came across one of the smaller staircase streets, Salita Grandi,
not many shops on this one, but there's the Hotel Bellagio, a boutique property with 30 rooms,
no connection with the giant Hotel Bellagio in Vegas that has 3500 rooms. And that Vegas property
has no resemblance to the town of Bellagio whatsoever. At the end of the promenade, you'll
reach the Grand Hotel villa Serbelloni, one of the most prestigious, historic hotels in
the area and the only five-star luxury hotel in Bellagio, now celebrating 150 years in business,
first constructed as a private villa in 1850 and converted to hotel in 1873. Just next to it,
you'll find Via Roma, that easier, more gentle way to walk up the hill mentioned earlier,
bypassing the staircases, and leading up to one of the main piazzas of town, the Piazza della Chiesa,
with the main church of Bellagio, Basilica di San Giacomo. "So in the main square we
have the fountain, that was originally the wall of the town, and now it's the fountain.
You see that it's a church from the 11th century following this architectural style that's called
Romanesque or Romanico in Italian, or Spanish. And it's an architectural style that developed
and spread everywhere in Europe. Of course, this one has been modified many times during
the centuries. So now you may see inside some baroque elements. You will see some side altars.
This is a huge church. Why? Because we are in Bellagio. Bellagio in the 11 century was already
the most important economic and fishing center on the lake, the most important town on the lake. So
that's why they needed a big church." Because of the importance of the church and large size of the
open area, this is generally considered the most important piazza in town, with a medieval tower
on the other side that was once part of Bellagio's now-disappeared defenses, and at the base of the
tower is a very popular restaurant. People line up to get in here. The piazza also has a casual cafe,
and there's a few shops around it and some vacation rental apartments are also available
right here on the piazza. The town's busiest commercial street extends out from here, the Via
Giuseppe Garibaldi, extending for 300 meters, with shops, cafes and restaurants along both sides of
it, on a path with beautiful cobblestone paving and a level terrain to enjoy a casual stroll.
Notice up in front of us, just ahead of that dog, there is a little restaurant called "Dai
Viga fresh pasta and," a delightful place to have lunch -- homemade noodles with friendly
service and an efficient system where you go to the counter and choose from the different types
of pasta and sauces, all made fresh this day right in that little kitchen. Place your order,
then sit down and they will bring it to you pretty quickly. Mmm. I had the rigatoni Bolognese,
still steaming with express service right from the kitchen counter. It's a casual, friendly place,
and they also serve wine, beer or a spritz. You can eat in or take the food away. Open from
11 a.m. until 9 p.m. Another food option right across the street is this deli-type, traditional
Salumeria. There you'll find all sorts of cheeses and cold cuts, and beverages to go, hams,
mushrooms, truffles, all in this traditional food store that's been here for more than 50 years.
Continuing along via Garibaldi, also called Il Borgo as the main street of downtown,
with numerous stores and boutiques selling local merchandise, with apparel and perfumes,
food and leather goods. Beware of the tiny cars coming at you on this narrow street, and sometimes
you'll notice a little side alley leading into a courtyard with more shops. This same street name,
Via Garibaldi is found in nearly every town in Italy because Giuseppe Garibaldi was the great
military leader who unified the country during the second Italian War of Independence. And in 1859,
Garibaldi's troops actually arrived in Bellagio, and at that point it became part of the Kingdom
of Italy. We've reached the effective end of this street, having arrived back at the
staircase called Salita Serbelloni, which we've already walked up and down. So at this point
I'm turning around and walking back along the same via Garibaldi in the opposite direction,
following those suggestions that I had earlier, that the street will look a little bit different
when you walk back the same way. And it's so nice, you don't want to just come through here
once and that's the end of it. By this point we have seen most of town and you might be getting
a little bit tired after all this walking, like this dog wants to just take a break. But it's an
easy glide along this smooth paving and we find ourselves back towards the Piazza della Chiesa.
If you wanted the easy route going back down the hill without dealing with a staircase,
just keep going through the piazza around that via Roma where we came up earlier.
Or maybe you're still tired. Do you want another break like this dog?
Since we're now on the upper side of town, it should be quite effortless to pick a lane and
walk downhill. We're going down Selita Monastero, which has that lovely, smooth cobblestone and
flagstone paving typical of the town. You'll see it's sometimes a staircase and other times
a gentle ramp, depending on the terrain. About halfway down Monastero, there is a cross street
called via Centrale, and this has a few more restaurants, and it connects over to the adjacent
staircase lanes on both sides, called Centrale because it's right in the middle of the town.
At one end of this little lane, you'll find Hotel Centrale, which dates back to 1922 and was
completely restored in 2005 by the same family that founded it. It has 18 elegantly furnished
guestrooms and a breakfast room and a small garden. Via Centrale does make a few zigzags as it
cuts across town, and it actually connects seven of those staircase streets that run perpendicular
to it. The green line shows the route that you could take if you really wanted to walk every
one of those staircase streets up, down and around in a complete exploration of Bellagio. Now we're
continuing our walk down Selita Monastero, and then we've got one more hill to climb,
up Selita Mella. These have to be some of the nicest outdoor staircases you've ever seen. They
are so well-made and easy to walk on. There are no elevators in town and no escalators, so it's
all muscle power. You walk up and down. It's the challenge and the fun. It's a good feeling when
you see the bottom of the staircase is not far away. You're almost back down to ground level.
Some people looking up wondering if they should make the climb -- go for it.
Connecting through the porticos to get to our final staircase, climb up Selita Mella, which
we saw briefly earlier. Now we'll climb it to the top, as we walk along. I'm going to share with you
a brief summary of the history of the area to put everything in context. It's such a beautiful place
that it's believed that humans have lived here from as far back as the Paleolithic 30,000 years
ago. But the first known human settlement was about 500 B.C., a Celtic tribe, perhaps living
in huts, held up on stilts over the lake, as was common in this northern Italy Lake district.
Next came the Gauls, and by 200 B.C., the territory was occupied by the Romans and then
fully absorbed as a Roman province in the year 80 B.C. They brought thousands of fellow Romans
to colonize the area, which became a mixture of races and cultures. They introduced many
Mediterranean food crops, including the olive and chestnut and planted cypress tree forests.
After the Romans, the Barbarians invaded, and after that the Lombards came in,
settling in what is now Lombardy. Following them, the Franks arrived in the year 773. We've made it
to the top of Selita Mella at via Garibaldi, and now we're going back down to the promenade and
stroll through the porticos to finish up our quick history. Because of Lake Como's strategic location
in the north of Italy, near France, Germany and Austria, it was a place of contention that was
fought over for many centuries, including invasion and domination from the nearby city of Como. Then
Milan took over in the 13th century, and during the 16th century, the Spanish took control and
dominated for more than 100 years. Then came the brief rule of Napoleon, and years later,
the arrival of Garibaldi to unite Bellagio with the Kingdom of Italy in 1859. Throughout the
centuries, Bellagio's culture and economy actually thrived, with its ideal location giving it a
military and strategic importance, and various industries flourished, notably candle-making and
silk weaving. The romantic discovery of landscape was changing how the Italian lakes were seen.
Stendhal wrote "The sky is pure, the air mild, a land beloved of the gods. I lift my gaze to the
most beautiful view in the world." In the early 19th-century, the noble families of Milan began
constructing elegant villas and gardens. Luxury shops opened in the village and tourists began
arriving. The golden age of tourism had begun. Bellagio Hotel was the first to open in 1825,
and several more splendid hotels sprang up in a short time, many of which are still open today
run by the founding families, such as Hotel du Lac, Hotel de la Grande Britannia and that
Grand Hotel villa Serbelloni. Today, there are more than a dozen hotels operating here and many
more vacation rentals. Our visit to Bellagio is coming to an end. It's time to get on board
and continue our journey. We're going to be crossing Lake Como, heading over to Varrena,
in another video. These ferryboats are a wonderful way to get around the lake and not
expensive. It's so easy to travel this way. You can purchase your ticket right on the dock before
departure. You'll have a grand view looking back at the town with that sweet sorrow of departing,
knowing that you have experienced such an incredibly magical and wonderful place.
There is nothing exactly like Bellagio in the entire world. We'll share more explorations of
the Italian lakes in our other videos, be sure to tune in. We frequently upload new movies,
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if you have questions about the destination, make note and we'll answer them. Thanks for watching.