Claudio cuts the engine in front of a magnificent villa. ‘This is 16th-century Villa Pliniana. Where Rossini composed Tancredi, Napoleon played billiards and Leonardo da Vinci studied the flow of its irregular waterfall. Not all at the same time,’ he says. ‘If you’ve ¤150,000 going spare, you can rent it for the week.’

Presumably, this is the sort of place that Como regulars such as Jennifer Aniston and Beyonce can afford. Further down the lake, life looks less fancy but no less lovely at Nesso, one of Como’s oldest cliff-hugging communities.