Lake Como

"I am beside the lake (Como), / The lonely lake which used to be / The wide world of the beating heart / When I was, love, with thee."

"And dimly seen, a tangled mass. Of Walls and woods of light and shade. Stands beckoning up the Stelvio pass Varenna, with its white cascade. I ask myself is this a dream? Will it all vanish into air? Is there a land of such supreme. And perfect beauty anywhere! Sweet vision! Do not fade away; Linger until my heart shall take- Into itself the Summer day And all the beauty of the lake."

"And, (Lake) Como! thou, a treasure whom the earth / Keeps to herself, confined as in a depth / Of Abyssinian privacy. I spake / Of thee, thy chestnut woods, and garden plots / Of Indian-corn tended by dark-eyed maids; / Thy lofty steeps, and pathways roofed with vines, / Winding from house to house, from town to town, / Sole link that binds them to each other ; walks, / League after league, and cloistral avenues, / Where silence dwells if music be not there."

"In the past, the rich bought houses and villas only on the hills of Lake Como, as Pliny did with Villa Commedia, in order not to lose their sight and to avoid flooding. "The poor went to the shore to have the water lick their feet"."

"Everything is noble and delicate (on Lake Como), everything speaks of love, nothing recalls the ugliness of civilization."

"No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks / The silence of the summer day, / As by the loveliest of all lakes / I while the idle hours away."

"That there is a God, when you look at the sky of Lake Como, is evident. (Robin Williams)"

"[...] at eventide when everything seems to slumber , and the music of the vesper bells comes stealing over the water, one almost believes that nowhere else than on the Lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of tranquil repose."

"Lake Como [...] is not like Lake Geneva surrounded by large fields well delimited and cultivated with the best systems, which suggest money and speculation. Here, wherever I turn, I see hills of unequal altitudes clothed with trees planted at will that the hand of man has not yet damaged and forced to bear fruit. Among these hills with admirable lines that plummet towards the lake for so singular steep slopes [...]. Everything here nobly, exquisitely speaks of love, there is nothing that reminds you of the ugliness of civilization."

"When you write the story of two happy lovers, place them on the shores of Lake Como. I do not know a district more manifestly blessed by heaven; I've never seen another where the charms of a life of love would seem more natural [...] and start it with these words: "On the shores of Lake Como.""

"You, Lario (Lake Como) very great. (Virgil)"

"Who that looks on these tawny hills | Cradling calm day new-born, | Who that sips mead from Como’s stills | This fragrant, sun-bathed morn, Will, bating reverende, record | Fair Como’s wrathful, ways, | And wont only ungrateful, hoard | The tale of her «bade days’?» | To day her ripples play bo-peep, | And dimple at the rocks | Lack in melodious mimicry | A sounding billow mocks."

"The lake as a whole is sweet, loving, Italian. Steep close-ups, warm colors of the houses; snowy horizon and all bordered by splendid houses, made for study and for love. – Taglioni, Pasta, on the left bank of the lake starting from Como. – Villa Sommariva; stone stairway descending into the water to embark on the gondola, large trees, roses blooming on a fountain."

"It is the most voluptuous place I have ever seen in the world. Nature enchants with a thousand unknown seductions and one feels in a state of rare sensuality and refinement."

"One is still close to the mountains (of Lake Como) and yet the desire already perceives the plain and a vast silent fertility."

"Remember how we came at last To Como; shower and storm and blast Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded; and how we pastFrom Como, when the light was gray, And in my head, for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Of Lari Maxume, all the way,Like ballad-burthen music, kept, As on The Lariano crept To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept;Or hardly slept, but watch’d awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o’er a terrace One tall Agavè above the lake."