Bellagio

Bellagio stands on the tip of the promontory where Como's two southern branches split, which is why the ferries converge here and why the town has water on three sides. The waterfront is a run of arcaded houses in ochre and cream above a stone quay; behind it the town climbs the hill in stepped lanes barely two metres wide, hung with flowers and lined with shops.

Those stepped lanes are the location. Salita Serbelloni is the famous one — a staircase of grey stone between painted facades, with the lake showing at the bottom — and it is photographed thousands of times a day in season. Salita Mella and Salita Genazzini, one street either side, are almost identical and almost empty. Because they are narrow and shaded, they work at midday when the open waterfront does not.

The ferries dictate the crowd. Between about ten and five the town takes several boatloads at a time and the main lanes become queues; before nine and after six it belongs to residents again. The gardens of Villa Melzi, a ten-minute walk south along the shore, are ticketed, level and quiet, and give lake-edge frames with plane trees and statuary when the town is too full.