The Bellagio mistery
 

Bellagio is not a particularly popular destination for Italians -most Italians outside Lombardy probably have never heard of it- but is very popular among Americans, at least on this forum. Where did this came from? Was it Vegas? Rain at Bellagio? A guide book? Not trying to dismiss lovely Bellagio, just curious.

Have you seen a map---the location should explain it.

I have wondered this myself, particularly as there are other places equally lovely and less touristy on Lake Como. Somebody's done a really good job of marketing, I guess.

best regards,
Deirdré Straughan

beginningwithi.com

Gee, I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've been pretty much all around Lake Como. Years ago, we went with a car and just traveled around the Como City area for awhile and left thinking, "what's the big deal". Later we came back and stayed in Bellagio. It's on that point with views in every direction -- no other spot on the lake quite has that. And it has nice shops, some really good restaurants, and is a kind of center for boats going to all the villas (mostly which are convenient because they're in that general area).

Name the other places that are "equally lovely". And of course, don't forget that people staying in any beautiful place need hotels and restaurants. So don't mention little spots that don't have those things, or that don't have frequent and easy transporation to, as we couldn't stay there anyway.

I don't think it was a "marketing" job at all. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen Bellagio "marketed". And I suspect the Vegas hotel was named Bellagio because that name is so identified with a beautful place.

Steve Wynn definitely got his inspiration for his hotel in Las Vegas from the town on the lake.

If anything, I suspect a lot of the people who go to Vegas had never heard of Bellagio until that hotel was built.

I question your assertion that most Italians outside of Lombardy have nevere heard of it. When we were last there we met more than a few Italians and even more Europeans.

Bellagio is exactly at the point in the lake with the beautiful views, it is like a peninsula.

The Italians know about it, they have a nickname for it, being as it is at the crotch of a running man if you look at the lake from above or on a map.

Bellagio has been a major destination for aristocrats and the otherwise wealthy of northern Italy and Europe for close to 200 years. If it's true that most Italians don't know about it, maybe it's because the "upper crust" didn't want the "common" folk horning in.

I "heard" of it thru vacation research on the internet long before the Bellagio in Vegas opened.

Yea, if the Italians didn't know about it, who the heck built all those expensive villas? And who do you think stayed in all those hotels in the early 1900's? I strongly doubt that it was mainly Americans.

"most Italians outside Lombardy probably have never heard of it"

And your evidence for this is?

Back in the Golden Age, it looked like at least 10% of all Caroselli (if you don't know about Carosello, you've no right to pontificate about the country, but go to www.sipra.it/eventi/carosello/corpo.html to plug this unforgiveable cultural gap) were set in or around Bellagio.

I agree that even most Lombards find nicer places to stay, that Bellagio is far too tricky to get to for most people anyway, and that there are far too many nice places Italians actually go to for Bellagio to have any kind of mythic status, except for being where impossibly beautiful women once consumed Star stock cubes or Locatelli salumi in those ads your kids would never go to bed till they'd seen.

But I've never met an Italian who hasn't heard of it.

Well, I don't have hard evidence, but I've lived in Italy for many years and this is my impression.

All I was saying is that Bellagio is far, far down the list for italians as a vacation spot, while for Americans it seems to come close after Rome, Florence, and Venice.

ps.
Flanneruk, don't lecture me. I'm fluent in Italian and I know far more than you ever will about Italy and italian culture, believe me.

Italy has the Bellagio mystery and Switzerland has the Berner Oberland mystery. (Not the same as Mystery Park, which is now bankrupt.)

My Swiss husband has never been to Zermatt and we and most of my Swiss friends have never been to Jungfraujoch. There are so many beautiful places to hike in Switzerland. BO is just one of the many.

Having just spent a week there this summer, I thought it was because it's like a slice of heaven on earth.
((c))

<Bellagio is not a particularly popular destination for Italians -most Italians outside Lombardy probably have never heard of it>

and this is based on??? i spent most of an afternoon there one busy day watching the boats ejaculate their loads of tourists, overwhelming the tiny town and most were indeed Italian speaking - i'm not sure of your initial premise, unless of course they were all Lombarians, quite possible on a day out from Milan.

Relax, it is based on living 15+ years in Lombardy. I went to Bellagio once and none of my italian friends has been there. True, I don't have an excel spreadsheet to back this statement up.

(1) "most Italians outside Lombardy probably have never heard of it"

(2) "it is based on living 15+ years in Lombardy. I went to Bellagio once and none of my italian friends has been there"

Hmmm . . . (2) doesn't really support (1).

But anyway, I didn't post just to argue. What you were trying to say (removing hyperbole), is probably true - that Bellagio is more popular a destination among Americans than native Italians. But there could be alot of reasons, such as Bellagio being too expensive, or maybe they think it's over-run with tourists. Maybe if all the Americans stayed home, Italians would flock there. It's hard to say.

Personally, I heard of Bellagio through travel books, but I've never stayed there myself (I stayed in Varenna). The casino/hotel probably helped it's popularity among Americans too.

Most of the tourists in Bellagio i saw were Italian that's all i know and i was purposefully looking to see who these mobs were. There were some Americans but the vast majority were Italian speakers.

LOL. so you went once to Bellagio. Surely you must have a much better grasp on the issue than someone who has lived 20 miles from it for 15 years.

The particular fascination of Bellagio conquered poets and artists ever since the Renaissance and ever since the nineteenth century a great number of well known foreign visitors have visited it from Shelley to Longfellow and from Stendhal to Flaubert and Liszt.

In ancient times we have references to paleovenetian and gallo-insubric colonies after which followed the roman conquests in the second century b.C. On the rear of the promontory where the Villa Serbelloni now stands Pliny the Younger had his villa built which was one of the two that he had on Lake Como and was called “Tragoedia”. It was on this site they say that Stilicone, when he defeated the Visigoths at Bellagio, built a fortress given its dominating strategic position.

<Where did this came from? Was it Vegas? Rain at Bellagio? A guide book?>
From the Bellagio tourist web site:

"The particular fascination of Bellagio conquered poets and artists ever since the Renaissance and ever since the nineteenth century a great number of well known foreign visitors have visited it from Shelley to Longfellow and from Stendhal to Flaubert and Liszt.

In ancient times we have references to paleovenetian and gallo-insubric colonies after which followed the roman conquests in the second century b.C. On the rear of the promontory where the Villa Serbelloni now stands Pliny the Younger had his villa built which was one of the two that he had on Lake Como and was called “Tragoedia”. It was on this site they say that Stilicone, when he defeated the Visigoths at Bellagio, built a fortress given its dominating strategic position."

seems Bellagio was on the tourist maps even before Baedecker is credited with the first European guidebooks...not a recent find by Rick Steves or Americans...indeed Pliny the Younger had a villa herefor God sakes.