The Gentlemen Season 2: Filming Locations on Lake Maggiore

The Gentlemen Season 2 Lake Maggiore has made this places familiar.

Guy Ritchie has brought his world of aristocratic estates, impeccable tailoring, fast cars and dangerous deals to the Italian lakes.

The second season of The Gentlemen, now streaming on Netflix, moves part of Eddie Horniman and Susie Glass’s story from the English countryside to Italy — and the Italian backdrop is unmistakably Lake Maggiore.

Grand villas.

Historic hotels.

Riva motorboats.

Mountain roads.

Lakeside villages.

And the kind of Italian landscape that seems almost too perfectly designed for a Guy Ritchie production.

Netflix itself describes the new season as a geographical expansion from the English countryside to the Italian lakes. The Italian locations around Lake Maggiore became the setting for Eddie and Susie’s expanding operation and their encounters with a new group of Italian characters.

But where exactly was The Gentlemen Season 2 filmed?

And can you actually visit the places you see on screen?

Why did The Gentlemen choose Lake Maggiore?

The choice is more interesting than it might first appear.

The production team considered a number of Italian locations, including Lake Como.

But when production designer Martyn John found Villa Rusconi-Clerici on Lake Maggiore, the search was effectively over.

He described the villa as the Italian counterpart to Halstead Manor: the scale, the architecture, the ochre exterior, the lake frontage and the gardens all gave the production the grandeur it needed.

There was another practical advantage.

The villa’s position directly on the water made it possible to bring Riva boats right up to the property.

That is precisely the sort of detail that makes the Italian sequences of The Gentlemen so visually distinctive.

The lake is not simply a background.

It becomes part of the story.

Villa Rusconi-Clerici: Bella’s Palazzo

The most recognisable Lake Maggiore location in Season 2 is Villa Rusconi-Clerici, in Verbania.

In the series, the historic villa becomes the palazzo of Bella, played by Benedetta Porcaroli.

The late-19th-century property sits directly on the lake, surrounded by English-style gardens and overlooking the Borromean Islands.

Several of the season’s most elegant arrivals take place here, including sequences involving Riva motorboats.

For filming, the production even constructed a temporary pier in front of the villa.

It is an extraordinary example of how much the location itself contributes to the visual language of the series: the architecture, the water, the boats and the mountains all arrive in the same frame.

And this is perhaps the most interesting detail for anyone visiting Lake Maggiore.

The villa is not a fictional location.

It is a real place.

The fictional Palazzo of Bella exists in Verbania.

The Riva boats

Few details communicate the aesthetic of the Italian episodes more efficiently than the boats.

The arrival of a classic Riva on Lake Maggiore, with the villa behind it and the mountains in the distance, is almost a visual definition of Italian cinematic glamour.

Netflix’s own coverage of Season 2 highlights the Italian boats and the lakeside setting as part of Eddie Horniman’s new world.

The Riva sequences were filmed at Villa Rusconi-Clerici, where the production created a temporary landing stage specifically for the scenes.

It is worth remembering that the effect is not entirely manufactured.

The combination of historic villas, wooden boats and mountain-backed water has been part of the visual identity of the Italian lakes for generations.

Guy Ritchie simply knows how to photograph it.

Grand Hotel Majestic in Pallanza

The lake is not the only star.

Another important location is the Grand Hotel Majestic in Pallanza.

The historic hotel provides the setting for some of the season’s most elegant scenes, including the wedding celebrations.

The hotel also served as the production’s base while filming in the area.

Its Belle Époque atmosphere fits naturally into the world of The Gentlemen: old money, formal interiors, polished surfaces and a sense that everyone in the room probably knows more than they are saying.

The production used both the hotel and other nearby locations to create the Italian world of the story.

Pallanza and the San Leonardo church

The Italian filming was not limited to private villas and luxury hotels.

The production also used Chiesa di San Leonardo in Pallanza.

The church becomes the setting for the wedding central to the Italian storyline.

The production design team transformed the surrounding setting with flowers and olive trees, creating the romantic atmosphere required for the sequence.

This is one of the reasons the Lake Maggiore locations work so well in the series.

The production did not need to invent an Italian world.

It found an existing one.

The harbour and the statue of San Dazio

Another recognisable location is the waterfront around the Statua di San Dazio in Pallanza.

The harbour and dock appear during sequences involving arrivals by speedboat.

It is a small location, but an important one because it connects the glamorous world of the villas with the ordinary geography of the lake.

This is one of the pleasures of watching a series filmed in a real destination.

You begin recognising the geography.

The villa is there.

The waterfront is there.

The mountains are there.

And suddenly the fictional world of Eddie Horniman has a very real address.

The road to Mottarone

Then the story leaves the water.

One of the Italian locations used in Season 2 is the winding road climbing towards Mottarone, above Stresa.

The road provides one of the season’s more dramatic settings and shows another side of the landscape.

From the lake, the area can look impossibly elegant.

Higher up, it becomes rural, wooded and mountainous.

This contrast is one of the things that makes Lake Maggiore such an interesting filming location.

Within a relatively short distance, you can move from grand lakeside villas to forests and mountain roads.

The production used precisely this contrast.

The lake supplies the glamour.

The hills supply the atmosphere.

A two-week Italian shoot

There is another detail that makes the production particularly interesting.

The Italian filming schedule was remarkably concentrated.

According to the production designer, the team had approximately two weeks to film in Italy, which made proximity between the locations extremely important.

They needed a villa, a church, a town square, a hotel and other settings within the same general area.

Lake Maggiore provided exactly that combination.

The result is a fictional Italian world that feels much larger than the relatively compact area in which it was filmed.

The real Lake Maggiore behind The Gentlemen

There is a temptation, when watching a production like The Gentlemen, to think that the landscape has been heavily constructed.

In this case, the opposite is largely true.

The production selected locations that already possessed the visual qualities the story needed.

The villas were real.

The lake was real.

The mountains were real.

The historic hotel was real.

Even the roads that appear in the more dramatic sequences are part of the actual landscape.

The production design enhanced these places, but it did not have to invent their character.

That is perhaps why the Italian episodes feel so convincing.

From Netflix to the real thing

There is an interesting difference between seeing Lake Maggiore through The Gentlemen and experiencing it in person.

On screen, the lake becomes a world of villas, boats, tailored suits and power.

In reality, it is much quieter.

The same mountains surround the water.

The same historic villas stand along the shore.

The same roads climb into the hills.

But between the dramatic scenes there are mornings, cafés, villages, stone houses and ordinary Italian life.

That contrast is precisely what makes the area worth discovering.

You do not need to recreate the series.

You can simply follow the landscape.

Staying on the quieter side of Lake Maggiore

If you are coming to Lake Maggiore because of The Gentlemen, the locations around Verbania and Pallanza are an obvious starting point.

But there is another way to experience the area.

Leave the lakefront.

Drive into the hills.

Follow the smaller roads.

Stay somewhere that feels connected to the countryside rather than to a resort.

At Antico Borgo Sanda, we are on the Lombardy side of Lake Maggiore, in the hills and countryside behind the lake.

Our home is an old stone family house, cared for through generations.

There are only two suites.

No television.

No crowds.

No large hotel lobby.

Just a quiet base from which to explore the lake, its villages and the roads that lead away from the obvious routes.

And yes, a Land Rover is a rather appropriate way to explore them.

Follow the locations, not the crowd

The Gentlemen has given Lake Maggiore a new role on screen.

But the lake did not need a Netflix production to have its own character.

The villas were already there.

The Riva boats were already there.

The mountains were already there.

The winding roads were already there.

What the series has done is give millions of viewers a reason to look more closely.

So if you have watched Eddie arrive on the lake and wondered where that villa is, where those boats are going, or what lies beyond the frame, you now know where to start.

Verbania. Pallanza. Villa Rusconi-Clerici. Grand Hotel Majestic. San Leonardo. Mottarone.

And then, perhaps, take the road beyond them.

Because the best part of Lake Maggiore may be the part that never made it into the episode.