{"id":3745,"date":"2016-10-21T23:37:56","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T15:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/?p=3745"},"modified":"2019-02-03T15:11:25","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T07:11:25","slug":"balbianello-como","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/2016\/10\/21\/balbianello-como\/","title":{"rendered":"Lake Como’s Star Attraction is the Villa del Balbianello (not George)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Italian lakes are famous for their villas and probably none is\u00a0more recognised than Lake Como’s\u00a0Villa del Balbianello. The villa has held its own in scenes from the Bond movie Casino Royale as well as in Star Wars, where a young Anakin Skywalker romanced Padme. I was even more impressed on my visit here because the story behind the house and its rooms are in themselves remarkable.<\/p>\n

Built in 1787 on what used to be a monastery\u00a0by the\u00a0Cardinal Durini, the villa had passed from the cardinal’s nephew to a few families and was subsequently neglected in the early 1900s until it\u00a0was acquired by American industrialist Butler Ames. \u00a0According to the villa’s history, Ames was enchanted when he first visited Como and saw the villa and vowed to buy it, which he did a few years later in 1919. Ames restored the villa and in 1974, 20 years after he had passed on, his family sold it to Guido Monzino, the son of the founder of Italian supermarket chain, Standa. It was Monzino who had lived here and is in fact interred here and the rooms of the house very much reflect his interests (he was a keen explorer and mountain climber\u00a0and\u00a0led the first Italian expedition to climb Mount Everest) and his spirit. He died in 1988 and left the villa to the national trust of Italy.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
View of the lake from one of the villa’s garden lookouts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Best Way to Visit<\/strong><\/p>\n

We visited Villa del Balbianello as part of a three hour tour of the lake by Bellagio Water Taxis<\/a>.\u00a0This was a great way to see the lake as well as a nice way to enter the villa via its “main entrance” which is a boat landing. While the grounds are beautiful, marked by the huge umbrella pines, I would definitely make the effort to visit the rooms. Unlike many other historical villas in which much of the furnishings have been removed, this villa retains the rooms the way Monzino wanted to preserve them. There’s an amazing hand crafted wooden staircase that leads up to his “expedition” room along with the various invaluable artefacts he collected from his 21 expeditions. Incidentally, the trust charges an additional EUR3.00 if you take photos inside the villa. More info on Villa del Balbianello including visit times and fees are at the trust’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Villa<\/a>
Arrival at the villa by water taxi – with Luca of Bellagio Water Taxis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Villa<\/a>
The church on the grounds – the garden where James Bond convalesced<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Villa<\/a>
A library in the villa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Villa<\/a>
The villa’s main sitting room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Villa<\/a>
The late Mr. Monzino’s expedition room with its artefacts including the sled he used in the north pole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Villa<\/a>
Large vases and topiary near the entrance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Villa<\/a>
View of Villa Balbianello as we leave by boat<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Italian lakes are famous for their villas and probably none is\u00a0more recognised than Lake Como’s\u00a0Villa del Balbianello. The villa has held its own in scenes from the Bond movie Casino Royale as well as in Star Wars, where a young Anakin Skywalker romanced Padme. I was even more impressed on my visit here because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,19,124],"tags":[46,29,141],"class_list":["post-3745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-italy-europe","category-italy-northernitaly","tag-garden","tag-italy","tag-lake_como","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4040,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions\/4040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}