Boats

The lake isthe road.

Wooden runabouts, lake launches, motor yachts and the moorings to keep them. Every skipper on this page has worked these waters for more than a decade.

Charter Transfer Berthing Management

Our boats work the whole lake rather than one village, so a boat can collect from anywhere. The village pages below cover how each shore behaves from the water: where you can tie up, and where you cannot.

01The fleet

Wood, mostly.

Como is a lake of small distances. The pleasure is not speed; it is arriving at a restaurant from the water at eight in the evening in something that was built forty minutes from where you are sitting.

Classic runabout

Riva Aquarama

Kept in original condition by its second owner and skippered by the same man for eleven years.

1968 Six guests SkipperedOn request

Lake launch

Ernesto Riva Launch

Built at Laglio by a yard that has been making boats on this lake since 1771. Quiet, slow and correct.

Eight guests SkipperedOn request

A village seen from the water on approach

Day boat

Colombo Super Indios

The most useful boat on the lake: fast enough for Como to Bellagio before lunch, small enough for any mooring.

Six guests Skippered or self-driveOn request

Boats gathered in a small harbour below the mountains

Motor yacht

Sanlorenzo SD90

Positioned on the lake for the season. Taken for a day, a week, or for an occasion.

Twelve guests Crew of fourOn request

Berthing

Moorings & Boathouses

Berths on this lake are inherited more often than they are sold. We hold a short list, and we know when it moves.

Central basin and western shoreSeasonal

Arrival and transfer

Water Transfers

Malpensa or Linate to your landing stage, with the car and the boat arranged as one movement.

Airport, hotel and villaFrom 340

02If you own one

The winter mattersmore thanthe summer.

Varnish, hauling out, engine work, insurance, and a berth that will still be yours in April. We look after boats for members who are not here for eight months of the year, and we send photographs rather than invoices first.

Winter storage

Covered, heated, inspected monthly

Varnish & joinery

Two yards, both third generation

Berthing

Central basin and western shore

Delivery

To your landing stage, in season

On the water

A boat, a skipper,a Thursday.

Tell us the date and the number of people and we will come back with two options and a price, not a brochure.

Request Something Membership

Questions

Can you rent a Riva on Lake Como?

Yes. Classic mahogany runabouts are available for the day with a skipper, and are the most requested boat on the lake.

They are individually owned rather than held in a fleet, so availability is genuinely limited in high season and worth asking about early. We also keep lake-built launches, which are slower, quieter and in many ways the better boat for a long lunch.

Do you need a licence to drive a boat on Lake Como?

It depends on the engine power and the type of boat. Smaller craft can be taken out without one; above a threshold set by Italian navigation rules, a licence is required.

Because the threshold and the paperwork change, we do not publish the figure here. Ask us and we will confirm what applies to the boat you are considering, in writing, before you book. Where a licence is required, hiring with a skipper is usually simpler and almost always more enjoyable.

Where can you moor a boat on Lake Como?

In marinas, at village harbours, and at private jetties attached to waterfront houses. Berths are scarce and move privately rather than publicly.

This is the single reason a house with an existing darsena or landing stage trades at a premium: riparian structures cannot be created retrospectively. If you are buying with a boat in mind, treat the mooring as part of the search rather than as something to solve afterwards.

On the water, village by village

Boats at BellagioThe village on the promontory where Lake Como divides. The most visited address on the lake, and still one of the hardest to buy into.

Boats at CernobbioThe first town north of Como on the western shore, close enough to the city to live in properly and far enough out to be on the lake.

Boats at MenaggioThe town at the western end of the mid-lake crossing, with a working piazza, a golf course above it and a road out to Switzerland behind it.

Boats at TremezzinaNot a village but a shoreline: four former comuni strung along the western bank, holding the greatest concentration of gardens and grand villas on the lake.

Boats at VarennaThe eastern-shore village at the mouth of the Lecco branch, small, steeply built, and the only address of its kind on the lake with a railway station of its own.

Boats at ComoThe city at the foot of the western branch. Roman in plan, silk in trade, and the one address on the lake that works as a place to live rather than a place to summer.

Boats at LaglioA narrow shelf of houses on the western shore between Moltrasio and Brienno, where the mountain comes down almost to the water and everything is reached by steps or by boat.

Boats at MoltrasioThe village the lake was partly built from, a quarry town on the western shore between Cernobbio and Laglio, stacked in tiers above a small harbour.

Boats at TornoA compact medieval village on the eastern shore that steps down to two harbours and turns its back on the road, the last piece of the lake still organised around the water.

Boats at BlevioA villa shore rather than a village: a string of hamlets on the steep eastern bank immediately beyond Como, close enough to the city to be useful and separate enough to forget it.

Boats at NessoBuilt around a gorge and a waterfall on the eastern side of the Como branch, and arranged as a single long descent from the road to a harbour at the bottom.

Boats at LezzenoThe longest shoreline on this side of the branch, made of many small hamlets rather than one village, with the western shore in the sun opposite and the mountain behind taking the winter light.

Read first

Lake Como by BoatThe lake was laid out to be travelled on the water, and it still works better that way, provided you understand the wind, the timetable and where you are actually allowed to land.

The Boat Owner's GuideKeeping a boat on this lake is less about the boat than about the berth, the winter and the two or three people who look after both.

Where to Eat on Lake ComoEating well on this lake is less about knowing names than about knowing the pattern: how far from the ferry quay to walk, when the kitchens close, and what the lake itself actually produces.