Lecco

Lecco lies at the southern tip of the lake's eastern branch, where the Adda flows out of the lake. It has been a provincial capital since 1992. Monte San Martino and the Resegone rise behind the town; across the Adda stands Monte Barro.

The old centre can be explored on foot. From the lakefront you come into Piazza Cermenati, below the basilica of San Nicolò and its 96-metre bell tower, and from there into Piazza XX Settembre, with the Torre Viscontea and the Palazzo delle Paure. Piazza Garibaldi and Piazza Manzoni are a few steps away. South of the centre the Azzone Visconti bridge crosses the Adda, and a little further downstream begins Pescarenico, the old fishermen's quarter. The other districts, once separate municipalities, spread over the slopes around, among them Castello, Acquate, Olate, Laorca and Maggianico.

The name Leuco first appears in a document of 845. Under the Carolingians Lecco was the seat of a county. In 1296 Matteo Visconti had the town destroyed; his grandson Azzone surrounded it with walls and between 1336 and 1338 built the bridge over the Adda.

In the sixteenth century Lecco passed to Spain together with the Duchy of Milan and became a fortress: this is the town with the castle and the Spanish garrison that Manzoni describes in The Betrothed. At the end of the eighteenth century Emperor Joseph II abolished the fortress, and the walls were pulled down. On 22 June 1848 the provisional government of Lombardy gave Lecco the title of city. Between 1923 and 1928 the neighbouring municipalities were joined to the city, among them Acquate, Castello, Laorca and Maggianico. For its part in the partisan struggle Lecco was awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valour.

At the Piani d'Erna excavations have uncovered an iron-making site more than two thousand years old, the oldest yet known in the Alps. From the Middle Ages a system of channels along the Gerenzone stream turned the wheels of forges, trip hammers and wire-drawing works. Silk-throwing mills worked on the same channels, and in the nineteenth century most of their workers were very young women and girls.

In the second half of the nineteenth century the forges became industries. Giuseppe Badoni brought furnaces and methods from abroad into his works, and his firm built locomotives, bridges and iron buildings. The Falck family, of Alsatian origin, had its main works at Malavedo before moving to Sesto San Giovanni. The railway arrived from Bergamo in 1863, from Milan via Monza in 1873 and towards Bellano in 1892. The Via del ferro, a walking route, follows the Gerenzone down from Laorca to Palazzo Belgiojoso.

Alessandro Manzoni was born in Milan in 1785 and spent his childhood in the family villa at Caleotto, in Lecco. He sold it in 1818; the villa belongs to the city and houses the Museo Manzoniano. The first chapters of The Betrothed take place in real places around the town: the branch of the lake, the Resegone, the bridge where the lake becomes a river again, and Pescarenico, the cluster of fishermen's houses from which Lucia leaves by boat.

The villa, the bridge and Pescarenico are within walking distance of the centre. On the first slopes, in Acquate and Olate, tradition places the village of Renzo and Lucia, with the bravoes' wayside shrine, the two houses said to be Lucia's and Don Abbondio's church. Above Vercurago stands the castle that tradition links to the Innominato. These places are linked in the Itinerario Manzoniano.

The Resegone, 1,875 metres high, closes the town off to the east. Its name comes from the dialect word resegun, big saw, after the points of its ridge. It has paths for every level: path 1 climbs to the summit from Versasio, where the cable car to the Piani d'Erna starts, and the Azzoni refuge stands just below the top. From the centre a bus runs up to the Piani Resinelli, at the foot of the Grignetta. In 2013 Lecco was Alpine Town of the Year.

Riccardo Cassin began climbing on the spires of the Grignetta in 1929. In 1938 Cassin, Gino Esposito and Ugo Tizzoni made the first ascent of the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses, in the Mont Blanc massif. In 1946 the Ragni di Lecco were founded, the climbers in red sweaters: in 1974 one of their expeditions made the first ascent of the west face of Cerro Torre, in Patagonia. The Museo dell'Alpinismo Lecchese, in the Palazzo delle Paure, tells this story.

San Nicolò, patron saint of Lecco and protector of boatmen, is celebrated on 6 December with a solemn Mass in the basilica. That morning children find a red apple, in memory of the saint who gave three apples to three poor children. During the feast days the city presents its San Nicolò civic awards, given since 1967.

Every year the Carnevalone crowns King Resegone and Queen Grigna, and on the Saturday of Carnival it brings its parade of floats through the streets of the centre. On the first Saturday in June the Resegup mountain race sets off from the centre, climbs to the summit of the Resegone and returns to town. At the end of June comes the Festa del Lago e della Montagna, first held in 1956. The lucie, the lake's rowing boats, pass in procession to the statue of San Nicolò, standing in the water off Piazza Stoppani, and there the lake is blessed, a rite introduced in 1937 by the provost Giovanni Borsieri.