Hermann Hesse and Lake Como

Herman Hesse, one of Germany's most famous authors and thinkers, as well as an esteemed painter and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, loved Lake Como, and Torno in particular.

Here is what he wrote:

"One of those little villages was called Torno, it was even leaning on its vexed tongue of land with such elegance and inconsuetude that I almost would have gone ashore. The boat, resenting the shore, chased a jovial inlet; there, behind the sparse green of young beech trees, descended a long, silent waterfall, magically white and veiled, so hidden and silent that I would never have suspected its existence. The village itself was small, slightly sloping up the hill and offering to the lake an enchanting setting that flaunted an awareness of lindura: a landing with wide, flat stone steps that also served as a washhouse, a few moored boats at the foot, a vegetation-clad house with an arch over the doorway and with small balconies, a quiet, clear stone square and, behind it, the façade and steeple of a church, a tame semicircular wall topped by young trees. It was a perfect, well-thought-out picture, and it was so appealing that at the last moment I could not make up my mind whether to possibly destroy it within myself. I didn't move and let the little jewel slip past me, shift and shrink, thanked it by nodding my head and waved goodbye. Love at first sight: I have more often found confirmation of this in front of a painting, and especially in front of architecture, than in the case of landscapes.

Hermann Hesse, "The Blue Distance" (1911)