One dayComo in a day, on foot
The walled town, the waterfront of Volta and Terragni, and Brunate at sunset: all on foot, plus seven minutes of funicular.
Public transport
The Val d'Intelvi in a day
From Lake Como to Lake Lugano: the cable car to Pigra, the churches of the Intelvi masters at Lanzo and Scaria and sunset from the Sighignola.
1day6stops
- Suggested base
- Argegno or Como, by car
- Transport
- By car
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Best season
- Spring · Summer · Autumn
- Yiyi · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Pifoyde · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Aniello Bizzoco · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Maurizio_Moro5153 · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Aconcagua · CC BY-SA 3.0
The Val d'Intelvi climbs from Argegno, on Lake Como, and comes down the other side to Lake Lugano.
It is a day by car, with one exception: the cable car that takes six minutes from Argegno's square up to Pigra. The morning is for the lake and the cable car. Then the road climbs the valley to Lanzo, and the afternoon goes to the churches that the valley's artists, the Carloni of Scaria above all, decorated here and across half of Europe; in the evening you drive up to the Sighignola, above Lake Lugano.
Suited to
- Anyone with a car
- Anyone who has already seen the lake's villas
- Anyone looking for the Baroque of the Intelvi masters
Book ahead
- Nothing in the warm months; from October to April the museum of Santa Maria at Scaria opens by booking.
Open on the map
The route, stop by stop.
© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
Download the route (GPX)Stops and track for Komoot, OsmAnd, Organic Maps or a Garmin.
The page as a printable document, with the route drawn on it: useful where there is no phone signal.
Add to your calendar
One event per day, with the day's plan. Import the file into a calendar app that supports the ICS format.Day by day
- Day 1
From the lake up the valley, and on to the Sighignola
The lake and the cable car in the morning, the valley's churches in the afternoon, Lake Lugano at sunset.
Transfer: Car35 min· From Como on the Regina road
Morning
Argegno, at the mouth of the Telo
On the broad lakeside square by the mouth of the Telo stands the Santissima Trinità, neo-Romanesque, consecrated in 1929 to Cesare Nava's design, with a rose window and mosaics on the facade. Up the village lanes is San Sisinnio, the mother church until 1632: Romanesque in its bell tower, with the narthex frescoed by Bernardino Barelli of Ponna.
Transfer: On foot5 min
Morning
By cable car to Pigra
The cable car leaves beside the bridge: six minutes up to Pigra, at 860 metres, with the first basin below the cabin. Ride up, look down on the lake and ride back down to the car left in Argegno.
Transfer: Car30 min
Lunch
Up the valley to Lanzo
The road climbs the Telo valley. At Ramponio, for anyone who wants to stop, stands the sanctuary of San Pancrazio, built as a Romanesque oratory between 1025 and 1050 by tradition; then you reach Lanzo d'Intelvi for lunch.
Transfer: On foot5 min
Afternoon
Lanzo: San Siro and the Madonna di Loreto
San Siro, begun in 1476 on Romanesque foundations, keeps early sixteenth-century frescoes, among them the four Doctors of the Church and the Last Supper, and an altar by Carlo Antonio Carlone. A few hundred metres away is the sanctuary of the Madonna di Loreto, begun in the sixteenth century as a copy of the Holy House and enlarged in 1673 by Pietro Spazzi, its portico frescoed by the school of Carlo Innocenzo Carloni.
Transfer: Car5 min
Afternoon
Scaria, the Carloni's village
Santa Maria was decorated by the Carloni brothers, both born in Scaria: from 1711 Diego made the stucco work, from 1724 Carlo Innocenzo the frescoes. A few hundred metres away, in the cemetery where the Carloni are buried, stands Santi Nazaro e Celso, from the twelfth century, with a portico frescoed in the seventeenth.
Transfer: Car20 min
Evening
Sunset from the Sighignola
A narrow mountain road climbs from Lanzo to the terrace, at 1,302 metres, which looks straight down on Lake Lugano and on clear days takes in the Alps from Monte Rosa to the Bernina. On summer evenings it is a place to watch the sunset; from here Como is an hour's drive.
Worth knowing
- The Pigra cable car keeps different hours on weekdays and at weekends: check its page before you set off.
- The road to the Sighignola is a narrow mountain road, and in winter it can close for snow or ice.
- The museum of Santa Maria at Scaria keeps seasonal hours: check its page.
