This September this Lecco province town will be hosting the 17th edition of the Festival dei Borghi più belli d’Italia, the most important yearly event organised by this most beautiful small towns of Italy association
This September Bellano will be a national centre-stage player. From 26 to 28 September it will be hosting the 17th edition of the Festival dei Borghi più belli d’Italia, the most important annual event held by the association representing Italy’s most attractive small towns. The event will bring representatives from over 200 small towns from all over Italy to Bellano and Lake Como for three days focusing on their culture and traditions in conferences, workshops, shows and events all around the town. But why was Bellano chosen for this event? Because, in 2021, this wonderful town on the east bank of Lake Como joined an exclusive association set up to pay homage to, and promote, Italian small towns standing out not just for their beauty but also for the tourist and cultural services they offer, the historical importance of their sites, artistic attractions and popular traditions and their varied landscapes and food and wine traditions. Bellano’s attractions impressed the association and other certifying bodies, too, taking it on a journey which has seen it transform from a small town offering local services to one of Lake Como’s primary tourism and culture hubs.
Its partnership with Navigazione Laghi is a prime example of this, with its various services for the inaugural cruise ship extended-exhibitions on the lake, on the occasion of the Rinomata Pesa Vegia historical re-enactment whose history stretches back 400 years. And Bellano’s gorge, carved out by the Pioverna stream 15 million years ago, is a not-to-be-missed site supplemented in 2025 by an open-air museum itinerary in the town centre, called BAC, Bellano Arte Cultura. But there’s much more than art in the town. Its 24-square-kilometre area encompasses 21 hamlets linked up by 15 themed itineraries, as well as the Sentiero Viandante footpath which links up Lecco and Morbegno. A further attraction at the foot of Monte Muggio, Muggiasca, and the village of Vendrogno, now part of Bellano, hosts a Dairy and Muggiasca history Museum (MUU). And if you keep climbing beyond 1150 metres you get to the meadows of Camaggiore, Tedoldo and Chiaro. There is a red Big Bench here, part of the international Big Bench Community Project circuit. Bellano is much more than just a lakeside town, then. It’s a patchwork of nature, art and traditions capable of taking those arriving by lake and those living close by equally by surprise, an invitation to an intense Lake Como experience for everyone.
