Villa Monastero, Lake Como: Botanical Garden & House Museum

Today the Villa Monastero combines a magnificent botanical garden, a museum and an international conference hub.  The Villa’s central location to the majestic botanical garden, which stretches along the shoreline and extends in the direction of Fiumelatte, offers visitors colourful and varied botanical gardens and a house museum with the original furnishings, pictures, tablewares and personal collections of the owners.

Villa Monastero is now an important international conference centre known worldwide thanks to the physics lectures delivered by Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi in 1954.

How to Get to Villa Monastero? 

Villa Monastero is easily reached by train from Milan, Lecco and Sondrio. You can go to Varenna by car ferry from Cadenabbia, Bellagio or Menaggio. Or go to Varenna by boat from Como or other towns of Lake Como. 

Villa Monastero: the House Museum 

Inside Villa Monastero, you can visit a rich and refined House Museum. The Villa Monastero House Museum tour offers 14 different rooms where the various owners’ rich furnishings, works of art and collections gathered over the centuries are perfectly preserved: from the Billiard room to the Music room, from the Mornico parlour to the main bedroom and luxurious bathrooms. 

Villa Monastero Garden 

The botanical garden of Villa Monastero astonishes with colours and forms; it is home to several exotic tree species, including African and American palms, agaves, yuccas, dracaenas, citrus and some botanical rarities, avenues with cypresses, cedars of Lebanon.

Against the backdrop of this varied nature are architectural elements that decorate the park: balustrades, vases, sculptures, and the neoclassical temple from which one can enjoy a relaxing view of central Lario and the tip of Bellagio.

Villa Monastero: the History

Villa Monastero was developed and named after the former women’s convent of nuns of the Cistercian order dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, which arose at the end of the 12th century.

The convent functioned for several centuries until 1567 when Cardinal Carlo Borromeo decided to suppress it because the number of nuns was too small.

The Mornico family thus purchased the monastery in 1569, which transformed the monastic building into a patrician residence with a series of architectural interventions ranging from Baroque to Neoclassical to late 19th-century eclecticism.

Villa Monastero Tickets for the Botanic Garden and the House Museum can be purchased online or at the Museum’s ticket office.

Villa Monastero is an excellent Wedding location. A prestigious and charming villa on the eastern shore of Lake Como is an ideal setting for the wedding ceremony. 

Walking along its avenues adorned with many plants and flowers, you can see the nearby Villa Cipressi and its terraced garden. 

Strolling through the park of Villa Monastero in Varenna is a must-do activity in Lake Como!  

Villa Monastero Opening Hours 2023

In 2023 Villa Monastero will be open from April on the following days and hours: 

House Museum: from Tuesday to Sunday, on public holidays from 9.30 am to 7.30 pm.

Botanic Garden: daily from 9.30 am to 7.30 pm.