Getting Around Como: On Foot, Funicular, Bus and Boat

Como's centre is the walled city, the Città murata, and it is inside the ZTL, the restricted traffic zone with electronic gate cameras. Inside are pedestrian areas that include Piazza Volta, Piazza Cavour, Via Vittorio Emanuele II and Piazza Duomo, so the shopping streets and the cathedral square are on foot by design. Practically everything a first-time visitor wants is within this pedestrian frame. Como Cathedral fronts Piazza Duomo.

The ferry pier sits on Piazza Cavour at the lakefront. The funicular's lower station is on the lakefront at Piazza Alcide De Gasperi. Como Lago station, the one for Milano Cadorna trains, is on the lakefront, and one boat tour operator puts its pier five minutes' walk from it.

Como San Giovanni, the station for Milano Centrale and Switzerland, sits uphill above the old town, and the tourist info point in its atrium is open daily 09:00-16:00. No official walking time is published between San Giovanni and the Duomo, so plan by the map rather than by any quoted number. The ZTL also covers the Piazza Roma and Piazza Verdi area and Piazza Volta, Via Grassi and Via Garibaldi.

Most of a first day needs no ticket at all. Save the Como map and work outward from the pier, and use what to see in Como to build a walking route.

Where the Info Points Are

Two Comune tourist info points answer questions in the city. The Info Point Broletto is on the ground floor of Palazzo del Broletto in Via Pretorio, beside the cathedral, open every day 09:00-13:00 and 14:00-18:00, phone +39 031 304137. The Info Point in the atrium of Como San Giovanni station on Piazzale San Gottardo is open every day 09:00-16:00, phone +39 342 0076403, and offers city maps and transport information in English, French, German and Spanish.

The main IAT office stands at Piazza Cavour 17, phone +39 031 269712, though its opening hours are not stated on any official page read for this guide. Between the two Comune points you can pick up a printed centre map, check boat and bus times and ask about events.

The funicular leaves from Piazza Alcide De Gasperi 4, on the lakefront, and reaches Brunate in seven minutes. It runs every day from 06:00 to 24:00, every 15 minutes from 06:00 to 07:00, every 12 minutes from 07:00 to 09:00, then every 15 minutes until the last departure at midnight. You can ask for intermediate stops at Como Alta and Carescione.

A single ticket is $4.27 (€3.70), a return is $8.54 (€7.40), children up to 12 pay $2.88 (€2.50) one way, and a 10-ride carnet costs $38.10 (€33). At the top, Brunate's streets are steep, so the ride is the easy part. ASF bus N9, which runs from Brunate past the Faro Voltiano lighthouse to Cao, is listed as suspended for works, so check the ASF site before counting on a bus at the top.

The funicular is the backbone of any Brunate trip and the details are on the Brunate funicular page. If you want the lake and the hill in one booking, the boat tour with funicular ticket bundles a shared cruise with priority funicular access for $72.23.

A rete urbana single costs $1.73 (€1.50) and is valid 75 minutes, an area urbana single is $2.31 (€2.00) for 90 minutes, and buying on board costs $2.88 (€2.50). Day tickets are $4.15 (€3.60) rete and $5.77 (€5.00) area. If you stay longer, a carnet of 11 rete tickets is $17.31 (€15) and a weekly rete pass is $15.57 (€13.50).

One quirk worth knowing is the integrated international single to Chiasso in Switzerland, just $2.31 (€2.00). Buy tickets at the ASF office or the self-service machines at the Piazza Matteotti bus station, where machines also sell the extra-urban day ticket for $13.27 (€11.50). The driver sells tickets at a surcharge, so buy before you board or use a bank card.

Tapping a Bank Card

ASF's SwipeOnLake scheme lets you skip the ticket machine entirely. Tap a contactless bank card on the green validator when you board. The card is charged the area urbana single of $2.31 (€2.00), valid 90 minutes.

Three taps at least 91 minutes apart in one day are capped at $5.77 (€5.00), which is the area urbana day ticket, on lines 1 to 8, 11 and 12 (N1 to N8, N11 and N12 in ASF's timetable list). You can pay for companions by tapping once per person within 5 minutes of the first tap. A red light means the card was not accepted and you have no ticket, so watch for it and use another card or a paper ticket.

The charge posts to your account a few days later, which can confuse anyone reconstructing their spending. The cap applies to urban lines only. The extra-urban lake buses charge flat contactless fares instead: C110 to Menaggio is $5.65 (€4.90), C130 to Bellagio is $5.08 (€4.40) and C140 to Lecco is $4.61 (€4.00).

The Lines a Visitor Uses

Four lines leave from the stations. From Como San Giovanni, N2 runs to Ospedale Sant'Anna, and N4 to Camnago Volta, N5 up to Civiglio and N8 to Casnate all start at "Como staz. FS".

N1 crosses the city from Chiasso and Ponte Chiasso to San Fermo, N7 runs Sagnino, Como and Lora, and N12 reaches Tavernola from Camerlata. N9, the hill line from Brunate past Faro Voltiano to Cao, is listed as suspended for works, so the funicular is the way up. The ASF ticket office at the Piazza Matteotti bus station sells tickets Monday to Saturday 07:00-19:30, and Sundays and holidays 09:30-12:30 and 13:30-17:30.

If your day includes the lake villages rather than the hills, the lake buses are extra-urban lines: C110 runs Como to Argegno, Menaggio and Colico, C120 and C125 serve Argegno, C126 reaches Campione d'Italia and C130 runs to Bellagio. At $5.08 (€4.40) by contactless, the C130 to Bellagio costs well under half the $13.84 (€12) boat fare, though the boat is the one with the views. This page keeps its focus on the city itself, and day trips from Como takes it further.

The Como landing stage is on Piazza Cavour, right on the lakefront at the foot of the walled city. Boats from here are priced by travel band, never by zone, and the first bands are cheap enough to treat as city transport. The urban band U hop to Tavernola, the first pier after Como on the timetable, is $1.73 (€1.50).

Cernobbio and Blevio sit in band 1 at $3.46 (€3.00), so a return to Cernobbio is $6.92 (€6). The tariff sets a minimum of $2.08 (€1.80) that no reduced fare goes below, and the urban U single is a special fare of its own. Two surcharges apply.

If the pier's ticket office is open and you buy on board, a fixed $1.15 (€1.00) extra is charged per passenger, and the servizio rapido fast boats carry a per-band supplement with no reductions, so the ordinary battello is the cheap option. Tickets are valid only on the day shown. Small dogs under 50 cm at the withers travel free and each passenger gets one free bag up to 60 cm on its longest side.

For the full band table, day passes and the summer timetable, valid 1 July to 4 October on the Como-Colico line, see the Como ferry page. In that timetable the first boat of the day, a rapido, leaves Como at 7:33 Monday to Saturday.

Do not drive into the centre of Como. The ZTL covers the whole walled city, the Piazza Roma and Piazza Verdi area, and Piazza Volta, Via Grassi and Via Garibaldi, all year, with electronic gate cameras at the entrances. Inside the zone are pedestrian areas including Piazza Volta, Piazza Cavour, Via Vittorio Emanuele II and Piazza Duomo.

Permits are applied for online only, using SPID or CIE digital identity, by category under Ordinanza 11/2017, and hotel guests have their own permit category, so if you sleep inside the walls ask your hotel to arrange access before you drive in. The Comune describes access rules that differ by permit category rather than one public opening window, and no parking rate was confirmed on an official tariff page, so none is printed here. The practical pattern is simple: park outside the walls and walk in, which costs you nothing in fines and very little time given the compact centre.

The Como map shows the stations and the pier against the walled city.

Renting Something With Wheels or a Hull

Rentals fill the gaps the buses do not. A self-drive classic Vespa rental costs $113.50 for four hours, with two helmets and a suggested route, and the listing asks for a category B car licence held at least a year or a motorcycle licence, plus 125cc experience. A vintage Fiat 500 rental is $223.55 for four hours with a manual gearbox and a refundable 300 euro deposit, drivers 18 or older.

On the water, a self-drive boat rental without a licence is $113.50 per boat for one hour after a safety briefing, so the per-person cost drops the more you share. If you would rather pedal, the e-bike tour with live guide is $103.18 for three hours, limited to eight riders aged 16 and over, starting opposite Como Nord Lago station. One train fact worth pairing with any bike plan: non-folding bicycles travel free on Trenord trains within Lombardy, one per traveller, on trains marked in the timetable.

And if none of that appeals, the golf cart city tour at $46.33 lets a driver handle the hills, with photo stops at Villa d'Este and Villa Erba in Cernobbio.

• No official Comune di Como page publishes a taxi tariff or a rank list, and Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo publish no taxi fares to Como. Ask the price before you set off, and treat any fixed fare quoted online as unofficial.
• No municipal bike-sharing scheme page was found on comune.como.it, so there is no city-run bike hire to point you to.
• Nothing about Uber appears in the official sources behind this page, so no claim about its availability in Como can be made here.
• Como Borghi is listed as a railway station, but no Trenord page read for this guide states which trains stop there or its role compared with Como Lago and San Giovanni, so plan journeys through those two.