Villa Monastero and Villa Cipressi Combined Tickets
The €27 and €25 combined tickets for Varenna's two lakefront gardens, what each covers, which garden is better, and the queue at Villa Cipressi that is not a queue for entry.
Varenna’s two great lakefront gardens share a wall. Villa Monastero sells a joint ticket covering both, and it is the best-value purchase in the village: €27 for both gardens plus Villa Monastero’s house museum, or €25 for both gardens alone, against €15 and €13 for Villa Monastero on its own. Bought together, the second garden costs about twelve euros. If you have half a day in Varenna, this is the ticket.
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What the combined ticket costs
| Ticket | Full | 65+ | 15–24 | Under 14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Villa Monastero garden + museum | €15 | €11 | €9 | Free |
| Villa Monastero garden only | €13 | €10 | €7 | Free |
| Both gardens + Monastero museum | €27 | €20 | €15 | Free |
| Both gardens only | €25 | €19 | €15 | Free |
Villa Cipressi’s own gate price for its garden is €13 full, €10 reduced and €7 for 15–24s, which is where the saving comes from: €15 + €13 bought separately is €28, against €27 for the pair with the museum thrown in. Prices are Villa Monastero’s published figures, checked on 29 August 2026.
There is a third combination worth knowing about if you are staying in the area longer. Villa Monastero also sells a joint ticket with the Monastero del Lavello at Calolziocorte, at €18 with the museum or €16 without, and that one is valid for fifteen days rather than a single day.
Which garden is better?
They are different enough that the question mostly answers itself once you know what each one is.
Villa Monastero is the long one. Almost two kilometres of terraces running south along the shore, more than 900 species, and a fourteen-room house museum at the northern end. It is a botanical collection you walk through, out and back, and it wants ninety minutes. It is also the one with the history: a twelfth-century Cistercian convent rebuilt by a German industrialist between 1897 and 1909, given to the Italian state in 1939, and home since 1953 to the physics summer school where Enrico Fermi taught his last course.
Villa Cipressi is the steep one. Smaller, denser, terraced down to the water on several levels — cypresses, magnolias, agaves — and consistently described by visitors as the better of the two for photographs. The villa itself is now a hotel, so the building is not part of the visit; the garden ticket covers the grounds only, and it holds a 4.5 rating from 300 reviews.
If you must choose one: Villa Monastero for the garden and the story, Villa Cipressi for the photographs and the shorter visit. If you have three hours, do not choose.
The Villa Cipressi queue is not a queue
This is the single most misread thing about the place. Villa Cipressi’s ornamental lakeside gate has become a photo landmark — you will see it called the Gates of Heaven — and a line forms in front of it of people waiting their turn to be photographed standing in it.
That line has nothing to do with getting into the garden. Reviewers say so repeatedly and with some bemusement: one describes being “at a loss as to why people were queuing for photos in front of a gate as the views from all of the gardens was lovely”; another simply “skipped it”. You can walk straight past and find the rest of the terraces comparatively empty.
If the photograph is what you came for, go early — visitors report the line lengthening noticeably within an hour of opening. If it is not, ignore it entirely and walk on.
Doing both in one afternoon
The two entrances are a few minutes apart on the lakefront, both south of the ferry pier, and the sensible order runs north to south with the light.
Start at Villa Cipressi, which opens earlier in the season and earlier in the day — roughly 09:00 to 19:00 from May to September, 09:00 to 18:00 in April and October, weekends only in early March. Get the gate photograph out of the way while the line is short, then work down through the terraces. Forty-five minutes to an hour is realistic.
Then walk on to Villa Monastero, and walk it southward. The house museum is at the northern end near the entrance, the barley-twist columns and the little lakeside tempietto are about halfway down, and the villa’s bar terrace is at the far southern end — the only place in either garden where you can sit down with the view. Bar service stops about an hour before the villa closes, and last admission is thirty minutes before that closing time.
Before you buy
- Buy the combined ticket at Villa Monastero, which is the villa that sells it. GetYourGuide does not carry the combined ticket; the Villa Cipressi garden ticket it sells is the single-garden one, at the full adult rate.
- Under-14s go free at both gardens and need no ticket at all, which usually makes the desk cheaper than any online booking for a family.
- Tuesdays cost you the museum, not the gardens. Outside June to August Villa Monastero’s house museum closes on Tuesdays. On a Tuesday the €25 both-gardens ticket is the one to buy.
- Villa Cipressi is a working hotel. Guests are in the grounds, the building is closed to visitors, and there is no interior to see.
- Both gardens are terraced and stepped. Neither is fully step-free.
Frequently asked
Is there a combined ticket that includes Castello di Vezio? No. The castle on the ridge above is separately run and charges about €4 at its own gate. It pairs well with either garden as an afternoon climb, but it is not part of any villa ticket.
Can I buy the combined ticket online? Through Villa Monastero’s own ticketing system, linked from villamonastero.eu. The resale platforms sell the single-garden tickets rather than the combination.
Which garden has better lake views? Villa Cipressi, from higher up and framed by the terraces. Villa Monastero gives you more water for longer, at eye level, for two kilometres.
How long do I need for both? Two and a half to three hours, plus whatever you spend at the bar terrace at the end of Villa Monastero.
See the Garden, Then Stay for the Aperitif
The terraces run two kilometres end to end and most visitors give them ninety minutes. Book ahead if you are arriving on a summer ferry — the ticket desk shuts thirty minutes before the gate does, and that is when the queue bites.
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