My husband Brent and I — and our longtime friends Gillian, Kris, and Tyler — recently spent a week in an Italian villa on Lake Como in Northern Italy.
Specifically, we stayed in Villa Mantegazza in the town of Cernobbio.
How romantic are these names? I mean Mantega-a-a-zza just rolls off the tongue.
The villa dates back to 1890, when it was built for an actual Italian painter named Giacomo Mantega-a-a-zza. And his descendants still own it today.
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A classic villa built for a genuine Italian painter? Sounds pretty darn romantic, doesn’t it? Like something out of Under the Tuscan Sun, Enchanted April, Call Me by Your Name, or, well, almost every famous movie ever set in Italy.
I’m guessing that, like poor Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey, the current owners have no choice but to let in the unwashed masses like the five of us in order to hold onto their ancestral home.
So, how was living in an Italian villa? Did we feel as romantic as Diane Lane and Raoul Brava canoodling under that Tuscan sun? Or as sexy as Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer, er, calling each other by the other’s name?
Was living in a hundred-plus-year-old villa everything it’s cracked up to be?
The Exterior
Upon arrival, Villa Mantega-a-a-zza was hidden behind a tall stone wall, which is the way it should be: locked away from the schmucks who haven’t shelled out €2500 to spend a week here. There was even a wrought-iron gate with a big lock and an engraved stone archway that said “Mantegazza.”
Isn’t half the point of living in an Italian villa feeling snooty and superior?
Once we entered the grounds, we were dutifully impressed. There was a trellis dripping with grapes, a little pond, and a long stone walkway leading up to the house itself.
Even the front door was charming, positioned under a portico and surrounded by frescoes. Oh, and the double wooden doors opened via a delightfully oversized metal key that fit into a charmingly old-fashioned lock.
But remember this lock and key: they may come into play later on. Oh, there were a surprising amount of mosquitoes in the yard. Did that have something to do with the pond?
Anyway, when it came to “romance” and this particular Italian villa, so far, so good.
The Interior
We liked the inside too. The ceilings were appropriately high, and the living room had plenty of couches and armchairs for us to laze on at night. I especially liked the lovely vintage upholstered lounge chair.
The villa also had a marble bust in one corner, because what’s an Italian villa without at least one marble bust?
Alas, the kitchen was dark and dated and not in a “rustic” or “charming” way. The counters were linoleum, and there was a strange smell coming from the sink.
In short, it was hard to imagine an Armani-robed George Clooney whipping up breakfast in bed for Amal. But I could imagine a flustered, overwhelmed Diane Lane lamenting how brown water was coming out of the ancient pipes.
All in all, the interior was romantic enough.
Day-to-Day Life for a Week in an Italian Villa
What was it like actually living in an Italian villa?
To be honest, it had its share of problems.
- There was a great view of Lake Como from the balcony on the second floor — and the mosquitoes probably enjoyed it very much.
- One of the four bedrooms had no curtains.
- The bedroom doors “closed” but only with big gaps. Privacy was only so-so.
- And the wardrobe in Brent’s and my bedroom had an extremely creepy cherub climbing out of the top.
Then, there was the matter of our private bathroom. It was fantastically large and tiled, but it looked like the hospital in American Horror Story: Asylum.
As for the hot water, it took five minutes for it to arrive.
No, seriously, I timed it. You could turn on the water, floss and brush your teeth, make yourself some tea, and watch the first episode of the Netflix series From Scratch — set, in part, in an Italian villa! — before your shower was finally hot.
But the villa was more than a hundred years old, so this kind of thing was to be expected. At least it had hot water.
Not to be expected was what happened at eight PM on the final night of our stay.
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After a day of touristing, we all stopped at a wine bar for drinks and nibbles. It was a kind of somber “goodbye,” since we were all heading our separate ways the next day.
When we arrived back at the villa, that wonderful, oversized key I mentioned earlier?
It wouldn’t open the door. Once in the charmingly old-fashioned lock, it barely even turned.
We jiggled it and fiddled with it and cursed, all to no avail.
Finally, we called our host. When she showed up 20 minutes later, she jiggled it, fiddled with it, and cursed in Italian, also to no avail. Sadly, she didn’t have the key to the downstairs door.
Finally, our host said she’d have to drive back to the town Como — about a half hour away — to maybe get the key to the basement from the handyman.
If he didn’t have a key, well, we weren’t sure what we’d do. It was a Saturday night, and Italy is definitely not a 24-hour locksmith kind of country. We didn’t even have the option of breaking a window because all the windows were too high to reach.
So our host set off to Como, while we waited.
And that’s when it began to rain.
Day-to-day life in a real Italian villa on the shores of Lake Como was definitely not as romantic as we’d hoped.
The Final Verdict: Romantic or Not?
The villa was nice, if flawed, and our experience living there was mixed. So the experience wasn’t very romantic, right?
Not exactly.
Let’s return to that Saturday night when we were locked out in the rain.
We knew we had at least an hour to wait — and we were all down to our last few pints of blood, thanks to the mosquitos — so we all took the short stroll down to Lake Como. It had been a trying evening, and we weren’t dressed for rain. Plus, Gillian had an early morning flight, and the rest of us all had stressful travel days ahead too. We needed to get to sleep.
But the rain quickly faded to barely a drizzle.
Meanwhile, we all sat on a jetty and watched the lights of the passing ferries.
We started to talk about the past week and the many adventures we’ve all had together in different cities over the past four years, ever since we’d all first met as digital nomads.
And soon, we were, by turns, laughing and nodding along to each other’s fondest memories.
What about being locked out of our villa? That was almost entirely forgotten.
Before too long — an hour later? honestly, I’m not sure — our host messaged to say she’d found the basement key, and the backdoor was now open for us.
Side by side, we walked back to our villa, mostly in silence. I felt closer to everyone than I had all week.
Our week in an Italian villa wasn’t perfect, but I loved it anyway.
The truth is, life doesn’t get more romantic than that.
Michael Jensen is a screenwriter, author, and half of a couple of traveling gay digital nomads. Subscribe to their free travel newsletter Brent and Michael Are Going Places here.
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