COMO can be a dispiriting place to arrive, with none of the picture-postcard prettiness you may be expecting from a lakeside town. As the nearest resort to Milan and a favourite stopoff on the main road into Switzerland, it’s both heavily touristed – though the region doesn’t feel as forced as in some of the other lake towns as many of the tourists are Italian – and, on the outskirts at least, evenhandedly industrialized. Apart from tourism, the main industry is a rarefied one – Como is the main silk-supplier for Milan’s fashion designers – but it doesn’t make its factories any more endearing. If you have time to spare, the old town is not a bad place to wander or take in, and the funicular ride has great views crossways the lake, but really you’d do best using the town as a transport hub and moving on to one of the lake’s more captivating resorts. Lakeside Piazza Cavour is a bleak space bounded by grotesque metal-and-glass hotels and banks with a couple of pricey pavement cafés. To the left is a little lakeside park set around a curious temple, now the Museo Alessandro Volta (April-Sept Tues-Sun 10am-noon & 3-6pm; Oct-March 10am-noon & 2-4pm; L4000/2.07), dedicated to Como’s most useful son, a pioneer in electricity who gave his study to the volt – some of the instruments he used to conduct his experiments are displayed inside.

Beyond, compellingly illuminated at night, is the Villa Olmo , an eighteenth-century Neoclassical pile in magnificent grounds. The villa itself is a favourite venue for congresses, but when the villa is delegate-free the gardens are open to the public (Mon-Sat 9am-noon & 3-6pm). From Piazza Cavour Via Plinio leads up to the Broletto , prettily striped in pink, white and grey, and with a fifteenth-century balcony designed for municipal orators. Next door, the splendid Duomo (daily: summer 7.30am-noon & 3-7pm; winter 7am-noon & 3-7pm) was begun at the end of the fourteenth century but wasn’t completed until the eighteenth, when the Baroque genius Juvarra added the cupola. The church is reckoned to be Italy’s best example of Gothic-Renaissance fusion: the Gothic spirit clear in the fairy-tale pinnacles, rose windows and buffoonish gargoyles; that of the Renaissance in its portals (with rounded rather than ogival arches) and in the presence of the two pagans flanking the main west door – the Elder and Younger Plinys, both of whom were born in Como. There was nothing unusual in the sequestration of classical figures by Christians in the Renaissance, but the presence, especially of Pliny Junior, does seem somewhat inappropriate, since his only connection with Christianity was to order the assassination of two deaconesses. Inside, the Gothic aisles are hung with rich Renaissance tapestries (some woven with appearance scenes) and if you’ve a few spare coins you could illuminate a heavy-lidded Leonardesque Madonna and an Adoration of the Magi by Luini, and a languid Flight to Egypt by Gaudenzio Ferrari.

The second of Como’s churches, the Romanesque Sant’Abbondio , left along Via Regina from the main train station, struggles to hold its own in a dreary suburb. Built in the eleventh century, it was stripped of later encrustations in the nineteenth century and returned to its original simplicity. Once inside you can forget the brutal surroundings as you wander down the serene aisles to the apse with its colourful fourteenth-century frescoes, the most appealing of which depicts the aggregation dreaming of Christ under striped and patterned blankets.

If you have time, head down to the lake shore to the right of Piazza Cavour, by Como Lago station, and take a funicular (roughly every thirty minutes 6am-10.30pm; L7000/3.62) up to Brunate , a small hilltop resort that’s a good starting-point for hikes and has great views up the lake.