Explorer Côme

Como Cathedral was built in stages from 1396 until the 18th century, when its dome was completed, and combines Gothic and Renaissance forms in marble. The facade carries statues of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger, both born in Como; inside hang 16th- and 17th-century tapestries and paintings by Bernardino Luini and Gaudenzio Ferrari.

The Como–Brunate funicular has linked the lakeside of Como with the hill village of Brunate since 1894, first by steam and electrically since 1911. The roughly 1.1 km line starts at Piazza De Gasperi by the lake and climbs with views over the city and Lake Como; the upper station is a starting point for walking trails into the hills.

The Basilica of Sant'Abbondio is a Romanesque church just south of Como's old town, built by Benedictine monks in the 11th century and consecrated by Pope Urban II in 1095. It has two slender bell towers, and its apse is covered with a 14th-century fresco cycle of the life of Christ. The adjoining monastery now houses part of the University of Insubria.

The Tempio Voltiano is a museum on the lakefront of Como dedicated to the physicist Alessandro Volta, who was born in the city and invented the electric battery. Designed by Federico Frigerio on the model of the Pantheon and opened in 1928, it displays his original and reconstructed scientific instruments, including voltaic piles, with personal effects and honours.

Villa Olmo is a neoclassical villa on the western shore of Lake Como, built from 1782 for Marquis Innocenzo Odescalchi to designs by the Swiss architect Simone Cantoni. Owned by the city of Como since 1924, it hosts exhibitions and events, and its formal lakeside garden with statues and a fountain is open to the public.