Lake Como,village by village.

The 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.

The 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.

Not 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.

A 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.

The 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.

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

The 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.

A 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.

A 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.

Built 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.

The 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.

The 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.