Must Visit Landmarks in Como and the Stories Behind Them

The first time I stood before the Duomo on a Tuesday morning in late October, with fog still clinging to the lake and barely another soul on the piazza, I understood why these structures have defined Como for centuries. The must visit landmarks in Como are not simply photo opportunities. They are the bones of a city that has survived Lombard invasions, Spanish occupation, and the industrial revolution, each layer of history pressed into stone and fresco. I have lived in this city on and off for over a decade, and every time I return to these famous monuments Como keeps in its heart, I find something I somehow missed before. This is my map.

The Duomo di Como (Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta)

Standing in the piazza on Piazza Duomo with its marble façade catching the last amber light of a Wednesday evening, the Duomo is the anchor point of the entire city. Construction began in 1396 and dragged on until 1770, which explains the strange collision of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles that somehow resolve into harmony. The façade, designed by Carlo Antonio Carlone with its interlaced rose window flanked by statues of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, is the detail most tourists skip. Those two brothers, born in Como, gave the Roman Empire its greatest encyclopedia of natural history. The city never forgot them.

Inside, the nine tapestries woven at the end of the 16th century in Ferrara, Florence, and Brussels hang along the side aisles and are genuinely worth standing still for. The central nave is wide and cool, and when you walk down toward the apse, notice the 16th-century gilded wooden altar canopy. It is theatrical in the extreme, almost overwhelming, but it captures exactly what the Counter-Reformation Church wanted you to feel.

Go in the late afternoon on a weekday around 4 PM when the tourists have faded and the raking light hits through the side windows. Summer midday Mass can close parts of the nave, so avoid Sunday mornings if you want to see the full interior. One detail I learned from a sacristan who has worked here for thirty years, the bell tower can be climbed on certain guided days, and from the top you see the lake in a way that no viewpoint in the city replicates. Ask at the sacristy door about scheduled ascents.

The Basilica of Sant'Abbondio

I visited Sant'Abbondio on a rainy Saturday in March last year, arriving just after the morning Mass had ended. The church sits on Vico al Sassito, tucked slightly off the main road that runs north from the old city wall. It is Romanesque, built in the 11th century over the remains of a 5th-century Paleochristian church, and it is one of the most important Romanesque monuments in all of Lombardy.

The five bell tower composition is unusual, almost theatrical in its vertical line, and the cycle of frescoes in the apse attributed to the Master of Sant'Abbondio dates to around 1315 to 1320. These scenes from the life of Christ are remarkably intact given their age, and the large Christ in Majesty with the four evangelists is one of the standout works of Lombard Romanesque painting I have ever encountered.

The basilica sits in a quieter part of the old town near the ruins of the Porta Torre, which means you can combine it with a walk along the medieval walls without fighting crowds. Get there before 10 AM and you will almost certainly have the frescoes to yourself for at least twenty minutes. The adjoining former Benedictine monastery buildings now house part of the University of Insubria's law faculty, so the courtyard is still alive with foot traffic even when the church itself is mostly empty.

The one complaint I have is that signage explaining the frescoes is minimal. The Italian-only panels give only basic context. Bring a small Lombardy art history pocket guide, or download the Deep Como app which has an English guide to the apse cycle. Without some preparation, the frescoes will wash past you.

Local Insider Tip: "After you finish inside the basilica, walk directly behind it to the garden courtyard. There is a section of the original 5th-century church floor visible through a glass panel in the ground. Almost nobody notices it, but it is the oldest Christian structure still visible in Como."

My honest recommendation is to spend at least 30 minutes here, especially if you care about Romanesque sacred art. The tourist websites always push people toward the waterfront, and this basilica proves that the real architectural heritage of Como lives slightly inland, hidden along its narrow medieval streets.

The Porta Torre and Medieval Walls (Cittadella)

The Porta Torre sits at the edge of the old Cittadella wall enclosure on Via Cesare Cantù, facing outward toward what was once the road to Milan. It is a massive medieval gate, close to 40 meters tall, built starting in 1192 when Como was at war with Milan. Walking through its base and looking up, you feel the thickness of the walls, which are over two meters deep at the foundation. This was a military installation, not decorative.

The two smaller flanking towers flanking the main gate were partially rebuilt but retain their defensive character. What most people do not realize is that the wall walk along the top of the Porta Torre is reachable via a side staircase, and from there you can see the full circuit of the old Cittadella walls still largely intact. The medieval walls of Como are among the best preserved in Lombardy, and they define the boundary of the old city to this day.

Early morning is the best time, before the heat turns the stone into a radiator in summer. I prefer going in cooler months when the local joggers are the only people on the wall walk. The walk itself takes about 20 minutes at a leisurely pace and gives you a low tourist, high ground perspective on the city's medieval layout. Much of the wall circuit along Via Epitaffio and Via Rodari is shaded by mature trees.

The tourist information point near the gate sometimes has printed walking maps of the Cittadella wall circuit, but they run out quickly on weekends. Grab one early or snap a photo of the wall map posted near the entrance.

Local Insider Tip: "Stand at the base of the Porta Torre on the lake-facing side in the late afternoon and look up. The light catches a stone inscription above the arch that dates to 1192. Most people only photograph the impressive front façade and completely miss the back."

This gate connects directly to the broader story of Como's historic sites Como residents live with every day. The Cittadella was the fortified center of the city, and every street within its circuit follows a medieval street plan. When you walk through the Porta Torre, you are physically crossing the threshold into the oldest layer of the city.

Villa Olmo

Villa Olmo sits on the lakeside lungolago at the western end of the public park, on the largo thing. I have been to Villa Olmo perhaps a dozen times, and the experience is completely different depending on when you go. The Neoclassical villa was completed in 1797 for the Odescalchi family and its name comes from a giant elm tree that once stood in the garden, now long gone.

The interior halls are decorated with stuccowork by the renowned workshop of Giocondo and Valadier, and the central oval salon on the piano nobile is one of the finest Neoclassical rooms in the province. It is used for temporary exhibitions, which vary wildly in quality. When the show is good, it rivals anything in Milan. When it is not, the room itself is still worth the entry fee.

The formal garden between the villa and the lake is a terraced layout with statues, gravel paths, and a sense of controlled elegance that feels almost French. In autumn, the maple and plane trees along the garden paths turn deep amber and gold. The villa sits slightly outside the historic center, which means it draws far smaller crowds than the Duomo. Take the number 1 or number 6 bus from Piazza Cavour, or simply walk 15 minutes along the water from the city center.

Midweek mornings are best. On Sunday afternoons in peak summer, the park around the villa gets packed with families and the experience of peace evaporates. Book exhibitions in advance online if they are a ticketed show. In winter, the garden closes at dusk and it gets cold fast by the water, so dress warmly.

Local Insider Tip: "If the villa interior is closed for a private event, still walk into the garden. Cut through the formal parterre on the lower terrace and follow the gravel path that runs alongside the water wall. Most visitors stop at the upper level and never get to the lower garden, which in spring has a stunning wisteria arbor almost nobody photographs."

Villa Olmo represents the secondary wave of famous monuments Como is known for, the 18th and 19th century lakeside villas that turned this shoreline into one of the most prestigious residential addresses in Europe. George Clooney has a few kilometers north. These estates are the aristocratic skeleton of the city's identity.

Tempio Voltiano

On Corso Cavour in the heart of the city center, the Tempio Voltiano is a Neoclassical temple dedicated to Alessandro Volta, the Como-born inventor of the electric battery. I walked past it last week on my way to the Saturday market, and a group of engineering students from the Politecnico di Milano were taking turns photographing each other in front of it with the kind of reverence usually reserved for saints.

The building was completed in 1928, funded by public subscription organized by the silk magnate Francesco Somaini. It is dedicated entirely to Volta's life and work. On display are his original scientific instruments, including early voltaic piles, electrophorus models, and electroscope apparatuses. The pencil sketches and notes in his own hand are kept in glass cases along the upper gallery, and the level of scientific detail presented here is impressive.

The building itself is compact, a single room temple-like structure with columns, so it does not demand a huge amount of time. Most visitors spend 15 to 20 minutes inside. What makes it worth the stop is the direct, tangible connection to the man, the actual instruments he held and used, sitting just a few meters from where he was born.

The best time to arrive is right after opening at 10 AM, before the bus tours start streaming in around 10:45. The museum is small enough that a dozen people inside already feels crowded. In the off season from November to March, you may walk in and find yourself completely alone with Volta's original electrophorus.

One honest criticism: the English translations on the exhibit panels are thin and in some places awkwardly translated. If you do not read Italian, the experience is still worthwhile for the objects themselves, but a companion app or guide with deeper English descriptions would significantly improve the visit.

The Tempio is a statement of civic pride. This small city on a lake produced the man who unlocked the concept of electric current, and Como has made sure you know it. This is one of the historic sites Como promotes with genuine justification.

The Life Electric Sculpture by Daniel Libeskind

Directly in front of the Tempio Voleskind's controversial sculpture, completed in 2015, is impossible to miss from the lakeside promenade. It is a twisting, abstract form in steel and white resin, intended to represent two opposing electric waves meeting, a visual metaphor for the force that Volta first harnessed. The piece stands on a small pier extending into the lake, face to eye level with Villa Olmo across the water.

I understand why locals argued bitterly about this for years. It does not look Como. It looks like it belongs in a Milanese sculpture park or along the Hudson River. But every time I walk past it, I notice schoolchildren climbing on its base and teenagers angling for photos in front of it, which tells me it has become part of the visual vocabulary of the place regardless of the debate.

The best time to photograph it is in the late afternoon on a clear day, when the light behind the sculpture creates a silhouette against the lake and mountains behind it. In summer, evening concerts in the small amphitheater adjacent to the sculpture bring decent crowds and the atmosphere is convivial rather than formal. I attended one last July where a local jazz ensemble played so well that I stayed for over an hour.

What most tourists do not realize is that the sculpture is anchored on the same pier where the old hydrofoil dock used to be. Before the sculpture, locals would wait here for the fast boats to Argegno and Menaggio. The pier still technically functions as a mooring point for small craft, so the relationship between water and structure goes back further than the sculpture.

The main disadvantage is that in bad weather and high winds, the pier is cold and exposed. There is no shelter. On a gray November afternoon, standing next to this sculpture feels like standing next to a white exclamation mark in a sky of complaints. If that sounds like your kind of mood, go anyway. The combination of Volta's museum behind you and Libeskind's forward thrust toward the lake is a conversation between past and present that Como otherwise struggles to articulate visually.

Chiesa di San Fedele

Tucked into the corner of the medieval marketplace on Piazza San Fedele, the church of San Fedele is Romanesque, dating in its current form to the 12th century, built over an even earlier 10th-century predecessor. I was there last Friday for a chamber concert in the small parish hall next door and escaped into the church itself during a break between sets. The stone apse glowed in the late afternoon light in a way I have seen in few other Romanesque interiors north of the Po.

The single-nave interior is spare and cooling, with a raised presbytery and a floor plan that has been repeatedly modified but still holds its essential medieval geometry. The wooden painted crucifix in the apse is attributed to the 14th-century Lombard school and is one of the best pieces of medieval painted wood in the city. The elongated proportions of Christ on the cross and the exaggerated angularity of the knees are a style you see across Lombard wooden sculpture of the period, but this example has a particular intensity.

Piazza San Fedele still hosts the daily food market, and the church is embedded in the commercial and social life of the neighborhood more actively than almost any other ecclesiastical building in Como. People duck in between shopping trips. The market wakes by 7 AM and the church opens for quiet prayer by 8, so arriving in the first hour of the market means the piazza is alive but the church itself is still quiet.

I will admit that San Fedele is easy to overlook because it sits slightly below street level and its Romanesque stone face is not as flamboyant as the Duomo. But the carved Romanesque stone portal with its stylized vegetal motifs and small lunette above the door is one of the best examples of 12th-century Como craftsmanship in the city. Almost everyone walks past it. Stop and look.

Local Insider Tip: "Behind the church, walk down the narrow alley to the right of the apse. There is a small medieval drinking fountain built into the wall, still functioning. The water comes from the same spring that fed this neighborhood in the 10th century. Locals still fill their bottles there in summer."

The church sits at the junction of layers of Como's architecture, literally built into the marketplace wall and surrounded by 15th-century commercial buildings. It connects the mercantile life of the medieval city with its spiritual core in a way that the grander, more isolated monuments simply do not.

Brunate and the Funicolare

The Funicolare up to Brunate is technically transportation, but the ride and the destination together constitute one of the most essential experiences associated with Como. I rode it up last Tuesday morning just after 9 AM and the car was half-empty, which is the whole point. The funicular has operated since 1894 and the route is 1,084 meters long with a vertical rise of 496 meters. The journey takes about seven minutes.

At the top, the Belvedere viewpoint gives you the full panorama, the lake, the city, and the Alpine arc stretching behind Como in both directions. On a clear day, you can see the Bernese Oberland across the water. I have been told by a retired funicular engineer named Enzo, who I met up there one morning, that the original steam engine was replaced by an electric system in 1911, and the current engines still follow the same cable mechanism, just modernized.

From the station, you can walk up to the Faro Voltiano, a 29-meter lighthouse tower tribute to Volta built in 1927 about thirty minutes uphill through the village streets. The tower itself is a relatively plain observation structure, but from the viewing platform the perspective shifts from lakeside panorama to mountain panorama, and you see the pre-Alpine range behind Como that many visitors never realize exists.

Go in the early morning or late afternoon. Midday in summer, the platform is packed and the heat radiating off the stone can be punishing. In winter, the morning often brings the clearest visibility before afternoon haze builds up. The funicular runs every 15 to 30 minutes and the current round-trip ticket costs around 6 euros. Check the schedule on the Como-Brunate funicular website because winter service can be reduced.

The connection to the city's character is fundamental. Brunate has always been Como's place of escape, the village where Milanese and Comaschi elites built their summer houses in the 18th and 19th century. That tradition continues, and the funicular is the lifeline. Beautiful Liberty and Art Nouveau villas line the streets of the village, particularly along Via Volta and near the top of the funicular route.

Local Insider Tip: "When you reach the top, do not just go straight to the Belvedere. Turn left out of the station and walk along Via Bonanomi instead. It runs parallel to the main tourist track and passes three private villas with open garden gates. The wisteria in April along that lane is the best in Brunate, and almost nobody walks that way."

When to Go / What to Know

The tourist season in Como runs roughly from April through October, with peaks in July and August. For the famous monuments Como preserves within its historic core, the shoulder months of late April to early June and September to mid-October give you the best combination of manageable crowds, good weather, and full opening hours. Winter closures do affect some smaller sites, so verify hours in January and February.

Como is walkable, the historic center is compact, and the distances between these landmarks on foot range from five to twenty minutes. The funicular to Brunate is the notable exception. A local bus ticket costs about 1.50 euros for a single ride and can be purchased at newsstands before boarding.

Comfortable shoes are not optional. The old city is built on a slope, and the medieval streets are paved in stone, often worn smooth and slightly uneven after centuries of use. If you visit in summer, carry water. The lake shimmer is beautiful but the humidity and reflected heat can be genuinely exhausting between noon and 3 PM.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do the most popular attractions in Como require advance ticket booking, especially during peak season?

The Tempio Voltiano occasionally requires advance booking during summer months, but generally tickets can be purchased at the door with short wait times. Villa Olmo's major temporary exhibitions sometimes sell out on weekends in July and August, so those are worth booking online a day or two ahead. The Duomo, Porta Torre, and San Fedele are open access and do not require tickets at any time of year.

How many days are needed to see the major tourist attractions in Como without feeling rushed?

Two full days allow you to cover the Duomo, Porta Torre walls, Sant'Abbondio, Tempio Voltiano, Villa Olmo, the San Fedele church, the Libeskind sculpture, and the Brunate funicular at a comfortable pace, with time for meals and idle wandering. One day is possible but requires starting by 8 AM and skipping some depth at each stop. Three days let you add the Olive Path walk and the villas on the western shore.

What are the best free or low-cost tourist places in Como that are genuinely worth the visit?

Walking the full Cittadella wall circuit costs nothing and takes about 90 minutes. San Fedele's interior is free to enter. The Libeskind sculpture and the lakeside prom walk near it are completely free. The small Civic Art Gallery in Piazza Santo has a modest but art historically interesting collection for under 5 euros. The Brunate funicular at roughly 6 euros round trip is one of the best value-for-money experiences in the region.

What is the safest and most reliable way to get around Como as a solo traveler?

Como is one of the safest cities in Lombardy for solo travelers, with violent crime against tourists essentially nonexistent. The local bus network operated by SPT is reliable during daytime hours, and tickets are cheap. The historic center is best explored on foot, and well-lit streets make evening walking comfortable. The funicular to Brunate runs from early morning until late evening and is a mechanically maintained system with a long safety record.

Is it possible to walk between the main sightseeing spots in Como, or is local transport necessary?

The historic center covers roughly one square kilometer, and all the main landmarks discussed here are walkable from each other within 15 to 20 minutes on foot, with San Fedele to Sant'Abbondio being the longest at approximately 25 minutes. The only exception is the trip up to Brunate, which requires the funicular or a strenuous uphill walk of about one hour on paved roads. Local buses are useful for reaching Villa Olmo from the center but not strictly necessary.