Lierna, and everything
around it

Lierna is best known for Riva Bianca, one of the finest beaches on the whole lake: very pale pebbles, water that turns turquoise, mountains in front. It's about a twenty-minute walk along the upper road, or a few minutes by car.

The Grumo beach, the one in front of NewCastle, is smaller and much quieter: same pebbles, same water, fewer people. It has a bar right on the shore and looks straight across at the point of Bellagio.

• The old hamlet of Castello, on the peninsula: narrow lanes, stone houses and the remains of Lierna castle, which was once an island.
• The church in the Castello hamlet, which keeps a relic of Saint Maurice, the patron saint of Lierna.
• The Genico watermill, a seventeenth-century mill open to visitors: one of the few in Lombardy that still has its original wooden wheel.
• The Sentiero del Viandante, the old path that runs along the hillside for the whole length of the Lecco branch.

Varenna is twelve minutes by car or one stop by train: the lakeside promenade, Villa Monastero and its botanical gardens, and the ferries to the far shore.

From Varenna the ferry reaches Bellagio in a quarter of an hour, and Menaggio and Cadenabbia a little beyond — from there you can get to Villa Carlotta and Villa del Balbianello.

South, Lecco is twenty minutes away: the lakefront of Manzoni's novel, markets, shops. North, Bellano and its Orrido, a gorge carved by the torrent with walkways suspended above the water.

And then the mountains, which start immediately here: the Grigna, the Piani Resinelli, the paths above the village. You can swim in the morning and walk high up in the afternoon.

There's a restaurant directly across from the building, and on the beach a bar where you can have coffee and a pastry for breakfast and a sandwich or a pizza for lunch. In the village and along the main road there are more trattorias serving lake dishes: whitefish, missoltini, polenta uncia.

When you arrive we leave you our current list: where to eat well, where to buy the fish, where it's worth booking ahead.