Colico

Colico is the northernmost town on the eastern shore, close to the point where the Adda flows into the lake. It is built on flat ground, because over thousands of years the river carried down sediment from the Valtellina and built up the Pian di Spagna. That plain is a nature reserve, on the Ramsar list of wetlands of international importance since 1976, and a stopping place for migrating birds.

The municipality brings together several settlements. Colico Piano, the centre, has the lakefront, the Art Nouveau landing stage of 1907 and the station. Villatico lies higher up, at the foot of Monte Legnone, which at 2,609 metres is the highest peak in the province of Lecco. Laghetto looks onto the Lago di Piona, enclosed by the Olgiasca peninsula. On the upper lake the Breva blows harder than elsewhere, and windsurfers and kitesurfers go out on the water from Colico's beaches.

The name probably comes from the Latin caput lacus, “head of the lake”. In 1357 Bernabò Visconti, lord of Milan, had the heights above the town fortified. In 1603 the Count of Fuentes, the Spanish governor of Milan, built the fort that bears his name on the hill of Montecchio. It was to guard the entrance to the Valtellina and the Valchiavenna, which then belonged to the Grisons. Ever since, the plain below the hill has been called Pian di Spagna, the Plain of Spain.

In 1629 the Landsknechts marching on Mantua entered the Duchy of Milan at Colico, and the plague came with them. In the nineteenth century Colico became a railway junction: the line to Sondrio opened in 1885, the line to Chiavenna in 1886 and the line to Lecco in 1894. In 1902 these became the first railways in the world to run trains on high-voltage three-phase alternating current.

The hills around Colico keep fortifications built between the twelfth and the twentieth century. The two small towers on Montecchio Nord are the remains of a castle that already stood in 1192. The fifteen-metre tower of Fontanedo, at about five hundred metres, was commissioned in the fourteenth century by Bernabò Visconti. The military engineer Gabrio Busca designed the Forte di Fuentes as a star of stone bastions. Its garrison suffered from thirst and from malaria, spread by the marshes below the hill. Napoleon's troops dismantled the fort in 1796, leaving the walls, the chapel of Santa Barbara and the parade ground.

Forte Montecchio Nord was built between 1912 and 1914 for the Frontiera Nord, the defences against a possible attack through Switzerland. It is cut into the rock and never fired a shot in the Great War. That is why it still has its four 149-millimetre Schneider guns, in place and in working order.

Piona Abbey stands on the Olgiasca peninsula, which encloses a small inner lake, the Lago di Piona. Its origins go back to an oratory founded in the seventh century by Agrippinus, Bishop of Como. A priory linked to the monks of Cluny grew up here later. The church was consecrated in 1138 and later dedicated to San Nicola.

The cloister, whose capitals are all different, was built between 1252 and 1257 at the expense of the prior Bonaccorso de Canova of Gravedona. Under its portico a medieval fresco of the cycle of the months survives. The priory was suppressed in 1798 and passed into private hands. Since 1938 it has been home to Cistercian monks from Casamari. The peninsula around it is a natural area that can be explored on foot.

Villatico is the old village at the foot of the Legnone. In past centuries twelve mills worked here, driven by the water of the channel that comes down from Fontanedo. They ground grain, but they also drove saws for logs and presses for walnuts and olives. The cooperative dairy was founded in 1915, and farmers brought their milk there to make cheese.

The church of San Bernardino was rebuilt around 1670 and enlarged in 1896–97, when it gained its side aisles and its present facade. Maria Laura Mainetti, born in Colico two days earlier, was baptised here on 22 August 1939. The nun was killed at Chiavenna in 2000 and beatified in 2021. Higher up, the small Romanesque church of San Rocco keeps frescoes of 1450, and the saint's feast is held there on 16 August. At Laghetto the feast of the patron saint, San Fedele, is held at the end of October, with roast chestnuts and apple wine.