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The Borromeo family’s 1670 palazzo on the lushly landscaped Isola Bella is an incomparable glimpse into the lifestyle of the wealthiest of Lombard families (see Isola Bella: Borromeo Palace).

The villa at Verbania, built in 1875 by Scotsman Neil MacEacharn, is closed to the public, but you can wander the English-landscaped gardens filled with exotic plants. Rare species include the world’s largest water lily at 2 m (6 ft) across and the towering Metasequoia, which was believed extinct for 200 million years until found in China in 1941.

Fountain, Villa Taranto

Lake Como is famous for its extravagant villas, but while some gardens are open, few of the buildings themselves can be visited. At Villa Carlotta, however, you can visit both the late Baroque villa filled with Neo-Classical statues and Romantic paintings, and the extensive, lush gardens (see Villa Carlotta, Tremezzo).

The villa’s private gardens cover the entire tip of the Bellagio promontory. The tours stick mainly to the paths, overlooking Italianate, English-style and Mediterranean sections. Stendhal described the vista from the top as “sublime and enchanting” – indeed, it’s the only spot from which you can see down all three arms of Lake Como simultaneously (see Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio).

Francesco Melzi, the Vice-President of Napoleon’s Cisalpine Republic, had this Neo-Classical villa built on Bellagio’s southern edge. The villa is off-limits, but you can wander the gardens to the water’s edge, visit a small museum (Etruscan, Egyptian and Roman artifacts) and see a mock Moorish temple that inspired a pair of Liszt piano concertos, written during the composer’s stay here (see Villa Melzi, Bellagio).

The original structure was not really a monastery, but a Cistercian convent founded in 1208. It was disbanded by Charles Borromeo in the 16th century after he heard lascivious stories about its nuns. After centuries as a noble villa, it’s now owned by a science research centre. You can visit a terrace of palms, cypresses, magnolias and roses, and a greenhouse of citrus trees (see Villa Monastero, Varenna).

Department store mogul and explorer Guido Monzino gave this 1784 villa and its gorgeous gardens to FAI (the Italian National Trust) in 1988. A museum inside chronicles his adventures from Mount Everest to the North Pole. The property pole-vaulted to the front of famous Como sights after appearing in Star Wars: Episode II (see Star Wars Episode II and Villa Balbianello, Lenno).

Fancy spending the night at one of Lake Como’s gorgeous villas? The Cipressi is now a hotel, and guests can wander its cypress-shaded gardens, blooming with wisteria, for free (see Villa Cipressi, Varenna and Villa Cipressi, Varenna).

This kitschy Art Nouveau villa was created by poet and adventurer Gabriele d’Annunzio, a flamboyant man who once flew a biplane over Vienna in 1918 to prove an invasion was possible, and in 1919 used private troops to take over a border town ceded to Yugoslavia, earning himself acclaim as a national hero and the enmity of those in power. The villa represents his life, loves and philosophy, which are cheerfully explained by guides. The famous plane is preserved in an outbuilding (see Il Vittoriale, Gardone Riviera).

Swiss dentist and naturalist Arturo Hruska may have had only a single hectare of lake property, but over 30 years he managed to turn it into a microcosm of Dolomite and Alpine flora. Since 1989, Austrian multimedia artist André Heller has kept it open it to the public (see Giardino Botanico Hruska, Gardone Riviera).