The World's Oldest Luxury Lakeside Vacation

SURRENDERING TO THE TIME HONOURED ATTRACTION OF LAKE COMO

- Uzma Irfan

The Y-shaped Lake Como in Italy is a most fascinating place to visit.

The nineteenth-century English romantic poet, Shelley writing to his friend, novelist, Thomas Love Peacock described it as exceeding “anything I ever beheld in beauty” adding that it had the “appearance of a mighty river winding among the mountains and the forests”.

Lake Como is, arguably, the longest-surviving luxury vacation spot in the world. It has defied the fell hand of time and remained the preserve and preferred retreat of the rich and the famous for millennia. In ancient Rome, the patricians, consuls and other aristocrats took a break from their senatorial duties by sojourning at its shores. In medieval times, kings, dukes and earls holidayed by its waters. Today, it continues to attract the billionaire entrepreneur and celebrity, who find sanctuary from the madding crowd in the grand palatial villas and picture-postcard villages that line it.

Naturally, it was bound to eventually find its rightful place in the pages of The Luxury Collection and in this issue, I invite you to join me in a reprisal of my journey to this magical lake.

Lake Como, as indeed most of southern Europe, is best visited in summer, so you can beat the searing Indian heat and bask in balmy temperatures. We were here last May and the weather was heavenly.