Piazza Cavour
Piazza Cavour is where Como meets the lake without ceremony — the north side simply opens onto the water, and on a clear afternoon the view stretches south toward the Faro Voltiano lighthouse blinking from its wooded hill. The Hotel Metropole Suisse has anchored the western edge since 1846, and a row of multi-coloured Italianate buildings lines the east, their ground floors given over to cafés and gelato counters that spill chairs onto the stone.
This is the square people gravitate toward without quite deciding to. The ferry terminal sits right here, threading the piazza into the rhythm of the whole lake, and street performers tend to find the same corners day after day.
💛 What travellers fall for
Regulars tend to stake out a café table on the east side in the morning, when the light hits the water at a low angle and the ferries are just starting their runs. The gelato parlours on that same stretch are worth the return visit in the afternoon. Come back after dark during December — the Christmas market turns the square into something else entirely.
The story behind Piazza Cavour
Before the 19th century, this ground was marshy and low-lying, and by the 14th century it had been shaped into Como's principal working port. Boats unloaded goods where café chairs now sit. In the latter half of the 1800s, as Italian cities remade themselves into bourgeois showpieces, the harbour basin was filled in and the space formalised into the square you see today — ringed by Italianate facades and fitted with lampposts that still carry a period formality.
One detail that didn't survive: a large fountain that once stood at the centre of the piazza was sold off and eventually found its way to New York, leaving the square more open to the lake than its designers perhaps intended.
Good to know
Five minutes on foot from Como San Giovanni station. Ferries to Bellagio, Varenna and other lakeside towns depart from the terminal right on the piazza. No entry fee, no opening hours. The square rewards a slow hour over a coffee more than a quick pass-through.
Como is one of the rainiest cities in Italy, and Piazza Cavour — fully exposed to the sky — makes that fact plain. Summer afternoons and evenings bring frequent thunderstorms rolling off the lake; mornings are usually clear and warm. Spring and autumn see regular Atlantic fronts moving through. Winter is cold and damp, with January averaging around 2°C, though the square and its cafés stay open regardless.
Where is Piazza Cavour?
Location
- In Como
- 45.8119, 9.0856
- Open in Google Maps
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