The Town that Overlooks Lake Como // Brunate, Italy

Above the city of Como, lies an Italian comune with only 1,800 residents but boosts spectacular lake views. Brunate is 1,600 feet above Como and is accessible by a steep, narrow, winding road, or a funicular (also known as a cable railway). During our day trip to Lake Como, we took this 123 year old funicular all the way up to view Lake Como from above.

Tickets for the funicular can be purchased at the ticket window at the bottom of the railway in Como. I tried looking online to see if these tickets can be pre-purchased, but I couldn’t seem to find anything. The ticket line moved fairly quickly and there are two cars running at the time. Tourists are not the only ones that use the funicular, local residents also use it. On the way up and down, the car stops about half way at a stop. It’s the most random and smallest stop I have ever seen, but at the same time, I thought about how cool it would be to live in a place where I needed to use a funicular to get home.

Once we got to the top, the views did not disappoint. You can view the beautiful blue lake below as well as the city and all the many buildings and villas that sit along Lake Como. But Brunate is much more than just a high vantage point, the town itself is packed with Italian charm and some of the steepest stairs we have ever climbed.

Brunate is fairly small so you do not have to allot a lot of time for it. You can ride up, walk around, take pictures of the view, ride back down in under an hour if you are in a hurry. If you aren’t in a rush, you can follow a walking path for about 30 minutes to Volta Lighthouse. Since we only had a day to explore Como and the lake, we opted not to make that trek.

After wondering around for a while, we all got super hungry and decided to head back down so we could dine along the lake. As beautiful as Lake Como is, it was nice to see the lake from a different perspective as well as getting to walking around this beautiful hillside town.