Fabulous Bellagio, fantastic Hotel Bellagio. This was our third stay at this hotel where we honeymooned 27 years ago. No it's not the "Ritz", it's just a damn good hotel with spectacular views over the lake and mountains. Happily the views haven't changed, but the hotel has had a total modernisation - clean, fresh and understated. The breakfast is excellent with a good range of food to choose from, and wash down with lots of cafe latte. The staff are professional, courteous, friendly and helpful. We can't wait to return to this little bit of heaven on earth.

The moment I arrived to this hotel by myself nothing was too much trouble for the staff. They were friendly and helped me with my italian which I am learning. The room was magnificent which a view to die for. I was on the third floor. There was always a smile when I walked in the front door. The only thing is if you have to carry a large suitcase and have difficulties then beware it is up 30 cobblestone steps. I managed with several rests on the way up but on leaving the nice man carried my case down for me. Would definitely stay here again. A warm and friendly hotel.

I found the Hotel Bellagio on Trip Advisor, and it was excellent in many ways. The rooms are extremely nice and modern-feeling. We had rooms with lake views (155 Euros/night), and the views were enchanting from the small balcony or lying in bed.

The staff were not terribly gracious, but did passably well. The desk clerk did respond extremely well when we complained about excessive heat from the bathroom towel rack heater.

The breakfast was good, but not noteworthy--a decent Continental breakfast.

The location is wonderful, although up a long flight of stairs outside. There are many restaurants within easy walking distance.

Our main complaint was the parking. We paid 12 Euros/night to park in a garage quite far away. FInding it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, that was very negative!! We first stopped at the hotel to get a map to the parking and drop the luggage off. The map was not adequate. You have to drive through a pedestrian zone that looks like a road on the map. It is, in fact, a ZTL (Zono Traffico Limitato). This made no sense to us so we had to drive around several times thru narrow, windy streets before working up the nerve to drive through throngs of tourists. This is not intuitive for us, and the hotel clerk should have made it clearer (she had good English).

We never could get the Wifi to work.

Overall, I would stay in the Hotel Bellagio again, but there were a couple quirks.

My 76 year old mother and I (her fourth trip to Italy, my first) stayed in a double room, no view, for 2 nights in mid-September 2011 (second stop on my 6-location whirlwind tour of Italy after 2 nights in Milan). I loved the hotel, and Bellagio, and am booking to come back, as a solo traveller, next September. Yes, it's up a flight of 38 steps and there's no help (it's clear from all the pictures Bellagio is a series of beautiful up/down lanes and there is not extra staff on hand at the hotel to help you, so pack light). Yes, the rooms with a lake view are beautiful (I peeked into one as the maids were cleaning), and in hindsight I wish I'd booked one for my mother and I as she spent more time in the room reading (jet lag) and happy hour would have been lovely looking over the lake. Yes, the pictures are really what you get, which is great...the outdoor deck for breakfast was wonderful with it's little-bit-more than peek-a-boo view of the lake. And breakfast was good, fresh fruit, yoghurt, hand made cappucino/latte, sweet breads (brioche, croissants, etc.)...I can't remember anymore if they had any meat and cheese selection...I don't think so, but I might be wrong on this point.

As for getting in/out, we took the train from Milan to Varenna, then the boat to Bellagio, arriving around 4pm, and that worked out wonderfully. There was a 24-hour general strike (9pm Sat to 9pm Sun) so we took the 8:30am bus to Como (small, lots of us crammed in as it turned out just about the only train in all of Italy NOT running that morning was the train from Varenna back to Milan) which was cheap (around 8 euro) and easy (dropped us all off right in front of the train station). We did the tour of Villa Balbianello, which I didn't think was worth 45 euros each, but it was a pretty place.