Introduction

 To know the history of Hotel Belle Vue, it is compulsory to go back at the time when Cadenabbia did not exist yet as such. Nabbia was the name with which people called the land that starting from a natural, sheltered harbour stretched up the woody promontory at its back. Apparently there were no houses or buildings on that piece of land except an old, modest inn. It is said that there had always been a lodge of some kind by the harbour to give shelter to the boatmen, who stopped there overnight or sought refuge from stormy weather. In ancient time, the lake was the best and quicker way for transporting goods and people from end to end of Lake Como, once navigable to the bank of Chiavenna. The road the Romans traced was far more difficult and longer as it only partly ran along the coast, winding steeply up any promontory or mountain sloping down into the lake. Only recently an along lake road was built, partially altering the morphology of the coast, by enlarging the banks with earthworks and by the digging of tunnels through the mountains. Still nowadays it is possible to walk along some segments of the ancient roman via Regina that overpasses the mountains and that had not been embodied into historical stratifications. It is so explained the importance of the harbour and its modest lodge people called Ca de la Nabbia in Tremezzina.