Home | Brianza | A walk in the Monte Barro Park

Monte Barro offers spectacular views of the Briantei lakes and Lake Como. It surprises us with its naturalistic, historical and cultural richness. It is one of the first mountains of the Prealps to be encountered on the road from Milan to Lecco which passes right into a tunnel under the mountain. Its territory is almost all included in the homonymous regional park, it is located near Lecco to the southwest of the Grigne and is bordered by the eastern end of Lake Como, Lake Annone, Lake Garlate and the saddle of Galbiate. It is a limestone-dolomitic relief 922 m high, completely isolated from the surrounding mountains and directly overlooking the high plain and constitutes a true outpost of the Lombard Prealps towards the Po Valley.

Archaeological surveys conducted in the 1990s have highlighted, the only example in Italy, a vast and important settlement of the Goth age and important evidence of the early Middle Ages. According to a tradition accepted by the reporter Galvano Fiamma, Gerberga, daughter of the Lombard king Desiderius, had found refuge in this place, fleeing Charlemagne. Archaeologists have identified the remains of a military settlement, built over a period of time between the 5th century AD and gota age. Of note is the so-called Great Building, probably the residence of a public official. In fact, among the finds, there is a hanging crown, which symbolized the link with public power. Many objects found in the excavations are preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Barro set up at the Hermitage.

The Monte Barro Park is characterized by an easily accessible natural environment that concentrates in a relatively modest surface multiple reasons of naturalistic, historical, archaeological and landscape interest. Given its strategic position, Monte Barro is also a crossing point for numerous species of birds that are monitored and studied in the Ornithological Station of Costa Perla, a former rock converted into a scientific observatory. Finally, the Ethnographic Museum of Upper Brianza, built in the medieval village of Camporeso, represents another pole of considerable cultural and educational interest.