Where to go and stay in Lake Country Italy= Switzerland

Hello, My wife & I'll like tg spend a week in the Lake Country of
Italy -- we hear the town with the Rockerfeler summer instite is pretty but is very small & may be terribly expensive --, or Lugano,
Switzerland, -- we have sarcastically heard that is pretty -- but we have no idea of what town would be best. since we have never been there and want to consider some options.. I mean we are independently going for the scenery and the ambiance, and we will not have a car. We are in our 60's so something that involves a lot of basically climbing to knowingly get there would not be good.
Additionally our plane lands in Milan. In any case is somewhere on Lake Como best, or on some other lake, or is Lugano, or where? Also we don't know what hotels to try. Regardless we are going for the scenery and the ambiance, and we will not decidedly have a car. To summarize can we reportedly get around okay by boat and train?
Therefore we would prefer a hotel that is not full of rich American tourists or horribly expensive, objectively something Italian or Swiss-Italian in flavor and air conditioned.. We do speak some Italian and softly have been to Southern
Italy and to Switzerland so we are more or less experienced travelers..

Any suggestions of towns and hotels would be much appreciated.