Villa D'Este

We stayed at Villa D'Este on Lake Como in Italy. It was a quaint hotel and has been around for a long time. What makes this place so special is the large piece of ground that the hotel is on. The mountains that surround the lake just go straight down to the lake, but this property had quite a bit of flat space around the hotel grounds. The hotel closes down during the winters, but is quite the place to be and be seen during the summer months. The original owner was in the military ( a long time ago!) and his wife thought he would be bored, so she had a fortress carved into the hillside so her husband could play military games! Villa D'Este also had a floating swimming pool. The grounds were beautiful and had this large mosaic "piece" as part of the hotel.