Giardino Botanico di Villa Monastero

Between Varenna's rocky shore and the lake stretches the botanical garden of Villa Monastero: terraces of exotic and Mediterranean plants running almost two kilometres along the water. It has been open to the public since 1940 and forms part of the historic estate on the shore.

Why it matters

The garden is a defining part of Varenna's historic lakeshore. It runs along a lakeside frontage the operator describes as almost two kilometres — an extraordinary stretch for any garden on this lake — and it does something few lake gardens manage: it grows genuinely exotic material, with the operator describing colours, shapes, scents and botanical rarities gathered from around the world in a climate sheltered by the cliffs behind and warmed by the water. It is also historically legible: nineteenth-century guidebooks already singled it out, and its public opening in 1940 extended the estate's cultural role. The garden and house museum remain parts of a single historic estate, alongside the gardens of Villa Cipressi.

What to notice

Terraced paths descend toward the lake, alternating planting and views. The citrus grove shades the lower garden, while changing light gives the long frontage a varied character. The planting mixes Mediterranean species with specimens from far beyond Europe, a legacy of the major extension carried out when the garden reached its present size at the turn of the twentieth century. The interplay of stone, water and vegetation appears in retaining walls, stairs and small lakeside structures at each level. Views across Lake Como change as the garden descends. The garden's historic landscape has also provided a setting for cultural events.

Context and history

The garden belongs to the estate that began as a Cistercian nunnery in the late twelfth century and became a noble residence under the Mornico family in the seventeenth. Its decisive landscape phase came between 1897 and 1909, when the German owner Walter Kees of Leipzig remodelled the villa and expanded the garden to roughly its present extent, creating the long lakeside frontage and exotic planting structure that remain characteristic of the garden. Public ownership arrived in stages: an Italian state requisition in 1918, purchase by the De Marchi family in 1925, their donation to public use in 1939 — and, from 1940, a garden open to everyone. The Province of Lecco acquired the complex in 2009 and manages it today. Nineteenth-century travel guides already praised the grounds, so the garden's reputation predates its public opening by decades. The monumental wing also houses the estate's museum.