Domaso

Domaso lies on the western shore of the upper lake, between the mouth of the Livo stream and the slopes of the Sasso Pelo. It is a long, narrow village between the Statale Regina and the water. The old centre has arcaded houses on the lake and the 'strecc', steep cobbled lanes that climb towards the mountain. Devotional frescoes and Renaissance family coats of arms survive on the facades.

North of the centre stretches a wide beach, partly free to use, with campsites on the shore and sailing, windsurfing and kitesurfing schools. In summer the upper lake also hosts international regattas. Above the village, in the hamlets of Gaggio and Pozzolo, vines grow on terraces. Domaso has no station: the nearest is Colico, and you arrive by bus, by boat or by car.

The Breva is a breeze that blows up the lake from the south, mainly in the afternoon. In anticyclonic conditions it blows regularly and can exceed 15–20 knots on the upper lake, with substantial waves. The Tivano is a morning breeze from the north, generally weaker.

Wind and lake conditions change with the weather. The Ventone comes down from the Valchiavenna and can reach high speeds; thunderstorms can bring sudden gusts. Before swimming or going out with a board or boat, check the forecast and observe conditions on the spot.

Domaso began as a fishing village on the Via Regina, the road of Roman origin that led from Como to Chiavenna and the Alpine passes. The statutes of Como of 1335 made the village responsible for maintaining a stretch of the road, within the pieve of Gravedona. The church of San Bartolomeo is recorded from 1247, when the community was already seeking independence from the pieve. The village also had a convent of the Umiliati, founded by tradition in 1160. After the order was suppressed in 1571, it passed to the Capuchins.

In the seventeenth century Luigi Panizza, governor of the Forte di Fuentes, had a chapel built in San Bartolomeo. In 1826 the Lario, the first steamer on the lake, began daily sailings between Como and Domaso; the same year the Plinio was launched for the line between Lecco and Domaso. In 1955 Villa Camilla became the town hall.

The parish church of San Bartolomeo was renewed from 1551 and took its present form in the eighteenth century, with the new facade and the presbytery vault, completed in 1730. Inside are a chapel frescoed in 1605 by Domenico Caresana, the tomb prepared in 1639 for Luigi Panizza, who died in 1661, stuccoes of 1692 by Agostino Silva and two frescoes of 1758 by Cesare Ligari. The church of Sant'Antonio, built by the Capuchins, was consecrated in 1646.

San Giovanni Battista, the church of the Umiliati convent, has been deconsecrated and turned into a house, but it keeps its bell tower. Villa Camilla, on the lakefront, was built in the first half of the seventeenth century for the noble Ghezzi family. In 1903 Count Giuseppe Sebregondi bought it and named it after his wife, Camilla Barbiano di Belgioioso. Its park, of about eight thousand square metres, has tufa grottoes, camellias, cedars and sequoias.

Above Domaso lie the villages of Vercana, on the slope, and Livo, in the valley behind. For more than two centuries many of their people emigrated to Sicily, and the churches keep their gifts. At Caino, a hamlet of Vercana, the church of San Sebastiano has a Baroque statue of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, in gilded wood. At Vercana the parish church of San Salvatore has frescoes by Antonio Maria Caraccioli, who was born in the village and emigrated to Palermo in 1770.

Also in Vercana is the sanctuary of the Madonna della Neve, founded in 1630 by the survivors of the plague and opened in 1634. At the Baroque sanctuary of the Madonna di Mezza Cresta, in Livo, the feast of Saint Anne is held every 26 July. Domaso celebrates its patron saint, Bartholomew, on 24 August.