Tomorrow, some of the most beautiful boats on Lake Como will leave the central lake and head south for Cernobbio. Villa d’Este Style Vintage Yachting returns on Saturday 12 September, bringing together historic motorboats, collectors and some extraordinary pieces of Lake Como's nautical history.
In short
Villa d’Este Style Vintage Yachting takes place at Villa d’Este in Cernobbio on Saturday 12 September 2026.
The event is dedicated to motorboats more than 30 years old and includes a lake parade, an elegance competition, historic boat displays and the wonderfully old-fashioned Vintage Jole Regatta.
There is also a separate exhibition of important historic boats in the gardens of Villa d’Este from 9 to 19 September.
If you happen to be on the lake this weekend, this is one to know about.
The boats are coming down the lake
There are plenty of places where you can look at an old boat.
There are considerably fewer where you can watch one doing precisely what it was built to do.
On Saturday morning, the participants in Villa d’Este Style Vintage Yachting assemble in the central lake close to Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio before making their way south towards Cernobbio.
The destination is Villa d’Este.
It is a route that feels almost purpose-built for them.
Bellagio behind you, the mountains narrowing towards Como, historic villas lining both shores and a collection of polished wooden motorboats travelling together down the lake.
Lake Como's classic boats make much more sense on the water than they ever could behind a museum rope.
More than another concours
Villa d’Este is already synonymous with automotive elegance through its famous Concorso d’Eleganza.
Vintage Yachting applies a similar idea to the lake itself.
The boats taking part must be more than 30 years old and the emphasis is not simply on appearance.
Their history, design, craftsmanship and preservation all matter.
Once at Villa d’Este, the boats will be presented in front of the hotel before taking part in the Villa d’Este Elegance Award, with owners demonstrating their boats and manoeuvring them in front of the marina.
A panel from ASDEC, the Italian association for vintage and classic boats, and the Museo Barca Lariana will judge the entries.
For 2026, the organisers are also introducing new awards recognising elegance, historical significance and the people responsible for preserving these boats.
Lake Como built this culture
The event matters because vintage boats are not simply decorative objects here.
They are part of Lake Como's industrial and cultural history.
Boatbuilders including Riva, Taroni, Abbate and Colombo helped establish the look of Italian leisure on the water long before Lake Como became an Instagram backdrop.
The boats were built to move.
Mahogany hulls, chrome fittings, beautifully simple dashboards and engines that announce their arrival long before you see them.
You can still find that history around the lake today, particularly through the work of the Museo Barca Lariana and historic boatyards such as Cantiere Ernesto Riva in Laglio.
It is one reason exploring Lake Como by water remains such a different experience from seeing it entirely by road.
For more ideas that begin on the water, browse Como Private's Lake Como journal.
There is an exhibition too
You do not necessarily have to attend the main event to see something.
From 9 to 19 September, the gardens of Villa d’Este are hosting a selection of significant historic boats from the collections of Museo Barca Lariana and ASDEC.
It turns part of the hotel grounds into an open-air history of Lake Como boating.
Among the boats previously highlighted by Villa d’Este are launches and motorboats dating back more than a century, alongside post-war Italian craft from the period when the country's boatbuilders were helping define modern Mediterranean glamour.
The setting helps.
There are very few places where displaying a vintage Italian boat on a lawn feels entirely logical.
Villa d’Este is one of them.
And then they race rowing boats
Perhaps the most appealing part of the day comes towards the end.
From around 3.30pm, the engines stop and the Vintage Jole Regatta begins.
Teams representing Villa d’Este, Museo Barca Lariana and ASDEC compete in traditional rowing boats.
After a day built around beautifully restored motorboats, owners, collectors and concours judging, finishing with an old-fashioned rowing race feels appropriately Lake Como.
Slightly eccentric.
Very elegant.
And probably taken considerably more seriously by the participants than anyone admits.
If you are around Cernobbio
The main event takes place at Villa d’Este on Saturday 12 September.
The programme begins with the boats gathering in the central lake in the morning, followed by their arrival at Villa d’Este, presentation, the elegance competition, lunch and awards.
The Vintage Jole Regatta is scheduled for the afternoon.
The wider historic boat exhibition remains in the hotel gardens until 19 September.
September is one of the best times to be on Lake Como anyway. The intense August traffic begins to soften, evenings become cooler and the light across the central lake changes noticeably.
Adding a convoy of classic Italian motorboats seems almost unfair.
The Como Private view
There is a temptation to describe everything old and expensive on Lake Como as glamorous.
That misses the point here.
The interesting part is that many of these boats survive because people have gone to extraordinary lengths to preserve them, restore them and, crucially, continue using them.
They are pieces of design history that still work.
Tomorrow morning, some of them will leave Bellagio and head down the lake towards one of its great hotels.
If you have access to a boat, you already know what to do.
If you do not, find yourself a table, terrace or stretch of waterfront somewhere between the central lake and Cernobbio.
Then listen.
You may hear them before you see them.
Written by The Como Private Desk
5 minutes