Anywhere Italy

Coast and lakes

10 lake towns not on Como or Garda

Lake comuni outside the Como and Garda basins: Orta, Maggiore's quieter shore, Bolsena, Trasimeno and the alpine lakes. 10 towns shown, smallest first.

Italy has more lakes than the two whose names precede every villa listing. Orta, the western shore of Maggiore, Bolsena, the small alpine basins: each carries towns that Como's prices and Garda's coach parks never reach.

The list excludes the Como and Garda basins entirely. Smallest first, because on the quiet lakes small is what you came for.

  1. 1.Belgirate473 residentsVerbano-Cusio-Ossola · PiedmontA small Lake Maggiore village at 199 meters whose Chiesa Vecchia di Santa Maria has held its 11th-century Romanesque bell tower for nine hundred years.
  2. 2.Bondone641 residentsTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolA two-village commune above Lake Idro at the Lombard border, with a Lodron castle on the cliff and a Bandiera Blu shoreline below.
  3. 3.Cannero Riviera909 residentsVerbano-Cusio-Ossola · PiedmontA Lago Maggiore commune of 900 on the western shore, fronted by three rocky islets, the Castelli di Cannero, Borromeo ruins from 1521.
  4. 4.Orta San Giulio1,047 residentsNovara · PiedmontA Lake Orta promontory facing an islet with a Romanesque basilica, plus a UNESCO Sacro Monte of twenty Francis-of-Assisi chapels on the hill above.
  5. 5.Molveno1,108 residentsTrento · Trentino-Alto Adige/SüdtirolThe village at the north end of a deep blue alpine lake, with the Brenta Dolomites rising straight out of the water.

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  1. 6.Capodimonte1,667 residentsViterbo · LazioThe lakefront Farnese stronghold on Lago di Bolsena — a small Tuscia borgo on a peninsula jutting into Europe's largest volcanic crater lake, with Antonio da Sangallo's octagonal Rocca Farnese, an extra-virgin olive oil tradition (Città dell'Olio), and views across the water to the inhabited Isola Bisentina.
  2. 7.Nemi1,877 residentsRoma · LazioThe smallest comune in the Castelli Romani, perched at 521 meters above a volcanic crater lake the Romans called the mirror of Diana.
  3. 8.Mergozzo2,148 residentsVerbano-Cusio-Ossola · PiedmontA 2.5-kilometer lake cut from Lago Maggiore by Toce flood sediments, with a centuries-old elm on its lakefront piazza.
  4. 9.Ghiffa2,257 residentsVerbano-Cusio-Ossola · PiedmontA Lake Maggiore lakeside village whose Sacro Monte della SS. Trinità above town belongs to the UNESCO nine Sacri Monti of Piemonte and Lombardia.
  5. 10.Bolsena3,708 residentsViterbo · LazioA medieval town at 350 meters on the eastern shore of Europe's largest volcanic lake, where a Bohemian priest reported a Eucharistic miracle in 1263.

We write about towns like these every Sunday, one town a week, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, from Pietrasanta.

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