Lake's District Guide

Druogno is the first Commune of Vigezzo which you can reach going up from Domodossola; there is the Farewell Chapel, a place from where in the past emigrants used to say goodbye to their relatives, who saw them to the borders of the valley. Between Druogno and Santa Maria Maggiore there is the Lutte Plain, considered the witches' meeting-place according to the popular imagination.

Santa Maria Maggiore is the tourist and administrative capital of the valley: is wonderful the view of the surrounding mountains you can admire from the historical centre. Beside the parish church, dating back to the XVIII century, there stands the medieval tower church. In the village there is the Fine Arts School “Rossetti Valentini”, its picture-callery houses the works of the most important artists in Vigezzo.

The Chimney-sweeper Museum documents through images and tools the work which has made the inhabitants of the valley known all over Europe since the seventeenth century. Perhaps Toceno is the most typical village in the valley for its panoramic position and for its elegant buildings, richly decorated and made precious with the wrought iron gates of their balconies.

Craveggia is famous for its chimneys, which stand out from the piode roof: in the past they symbolized the bourgeois families wealth; the jewel of the village is Piazza dei Miracoli that includes three monuments of great importance: the eighteenth century parish church with its collection of holy art, which documents the Vigezzo artists' ability; The Battistero and St. Marta's oratory. In the historical centre, you also find the interesting Loggia dei Bandi, where public ordinances were put up. In Bagni di Craveggia the thermal water, about 30_C hot, gushes out from the ground, and its properties have been known since the fifteenth century. Malesco is a holiday resort, famous for the stone working, that characterizes the local architecture, and for the production of the mineral waters of Vigezzo.

Of great artistic interest is St Pietro and Paolo'parish church, which keeps eighteenth century frescoes. The building of Jelmoli Mill dating back to the XVIII century, is still working and is the seat of a museum, which documents the ancient activity of cereals grinding. The Loana valley, behind Malesco, offers th epossibility of pleasant excursions on foot. Relaxing walks through the green and a visit to Ca' di feman, a seventeenth century building, which nowadays is used as an ethnographic museum, are what the ancient rural village of Villette offers. Re, the last Commune that you find going up the valley, is the centre of the popular religious faith, thanks to the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Sangue which keeps a fourteenth century fresco representing the Madonna nursing Infant Jesus: the tradition tells that blood gushed from her wounded brow.

Texts and images are published with courtesy of

Lake Tourist District Scrl - corso Italia 18

Stresa (VB)