Etappe 18 - donderdag 26 mei Vertrekpunt: Morbegno - San Pellegrino Terme Afstand: 147 km

MORBEGNO
Vivacious small town, in the past it was one of the richest commercial settlements in Valtellina, as witnessed by the numerous elegant palaces embellishing the town, among which Palazzo Malacrida rebuilt by Pietro Solari in the mid eighteenth-century. And this richness is owed to the strategic position of Morbegno, on the Via Priula constructed in 1590 for allowing the connection of the Bergamo valleys with the Grigioni lands. Certain places are worth a visit: the Collegiata di San Giovanni Battista, which dated back to the sixteenth-century but was rebuilt in Baroque style, with a magnificent inside, adorned with frescoes and paintings dating back to the eighteenth-century, and the Santuario dell’Assunta (fifteenth and seventeenth century), among the most beautiful examples of Valtellina Renaissance architecture. The Church of S. Antonio hosts a remarkable Pietà by the Rodari school. The town also boasts a Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Valtellinese which exhibits fossil finds and minerals of the entire valley. A little down South visitors access the valley of the Bitto di Gerola, the famous cheese obtained from fresh milk mixed in summer in alpine mountain grazing. This cheese is a Slow Food Presidia which is the pride of the Valtellina. Valtellina is also the country of the bresaola (dried salted meat) which has obtained the protected geographical indication from the European Community.

FROM MORBEGNO TO SAN PELLEGRINO TERME

Bellano
On the eastern shore of the lake of Come, Bellano is crossed by the Pioverna Torrent which flows down from the Valsassina forming a high waterfall above the town. Sightseers can visit the Chiesa dei Santi Nazaro e Celso (fourteenth and fifteenth-century) with a polychromatic rose window on the Gothic façade and a precious inside with paintings and frescoes. Likewise famous is the Orrido, a deep natural gorge formed 15 millions of years ago by  the water of the Pioverna torrent. Those who do not suffer from dizziness can cross a part of the Orrido walking on the steep walkways on precipice.

Mandello del Lario
The Museo del Motociclo Guzzi exposes wonderful samples and one off model of one of the most important Italian manufactures of road and racing motorcycles. Here, in 1919 Carlo Guzzi together with the smith Giorgio Ripamonti, constructed his first motorcycle which soon became a legend because a rich Genoese ship-owner, Emanuele Vittorio Parodi, liked it so much that he decided to finance its production. This is how in 1921 the Società Anonima Moto Guzzi was created.

Lecco
Casted on the lake, it boasts spectacular squares which form the great town lounge. Such as piazza Cermenati where, in ancient time, there was one of the most important markets of the Lombard alps area, which is still nowadays a pre-eminently meeting place, or the quiet piazza XX Settembre which hosts the neoclassical Palazzo delle Paure (fear palace), named as such since aimed at the collection of taxes, and the nineteenth-century buildings embellished by porticoes and open galleries. In piazza Alessandro Manzoni stands a statue of the late nineteenth-century which portrays the most famous son of town. Worth of note is also the Museo Manzoniano, set up in the villa where Manzoni used to live. At the first floor the Galleria Comunale d’Arte exhibits valuable paintings of the nineteenth-century. Another symbol of Lecco is the Ponte Vecchio, which dates back to the fourteenth-century, with beautiful arcades, a real civil and military engineering jewel.