Gorges and ravines

Two of Lario's gorges can be visited on foot without leaving the village: the Orrido di Bellano, on the eastern shore, and the Orrido di Nesso, on the Como branch.

At Bellano the Pioverna torrent, which comes down from the Valsassina, and the Adda glacier cut a narrow, deep gorge into the rock. You walk through it on walkways anchored to the walls above the water, past great potholes and clefts, as far as the waterfall upstream. At the entrance stands the Ca' del Diavol, a turret that houses a multimedia exhibition on the history of the place. At Nesso the Tuf and Nosee streams meet and fall towards the lake through a drop of about 200 metres. From the village centre a stairway of about three hundred steps leads down to the Ponte della Civera, a single-arched stone bridge under which the waterfall enters the lake. For centuries the force of the water drove local industry: at Bellano the ironworks, then silk mills and a cotton mill; at Nesso grain mills, paper mills and silk mills. Each visit takes about an hour; Bellano is reached by train, Nesso by bus.

1. 01Bellano: the gorge entrance is five minutes' walk from Bellano-Tartavalle station, on the Milan–Lecco–Sondrio–Tirano line. The walkways are open all year.
2. 02Admission to the Orrido di Bellano is by ticket, reduced for anyone arriving with a train or lake-boat ticket. The route is easy but has stairs and narrow passages, so pushchairs and wheelchairs are not allowed; dogs are.
3. 03Nesso: C130 bus from Como (35 minutes) or from Bellagio (30 minutes); the stairway starts in the village centre. Boats call at Nesso, with limited, seasonal sailings.
4. 04At Nesso you go down about three hundred steep steps and come back up the same way, with no alternative route; no ticket is needed. The gorge can also be seen from above, from Piazza Castello.
5. 05Both gorges in one day: Bellano to Varenna by train in five minutes, Varenna to Bellagio by ferry in a quarter of an hour, Bellagio to Nesso on the C130 bus in half an hour. From Nesso the same line runs back to Como.
6. 06Closed shoes in both cases: the surfaces are wet and slippery. In spring the flow peaks.

WhereBellano · Nesso