The Orrido di Bellano is the main tourist attraction in the town and one of the most important on Lake Como.
It is a natural gorge created 15 million years ago by the erosion of the Pioverna stream and the Adda Glacier which, over the centuries, have shaped the rock into gigantic potholes, gloomy ravines and suggestive caverns.
The narrow canyon can be visited thanks to a system of walkways anchored on the high walls overlooking the water, perfectly illuminated even in the evening where the charm of the place takes on different shades, and which have recently been lengthened to reach the large waterfall located more Mountain.
The narrow spaces, the particular plays of light reflected on the rocky walls and on the water, the vegetation that refers to more tropical environments and the noise of the waterfalls that crash on the stone has always inspired many writers who have told about its beauty or have built some legends such as that of Taino or those related to the Cà del Diavol.
It happened to Stendhal who mentioned it in his Journey to Italy, it happened to Johann Jakob Wetzel who described it as "a theater of beauty and fear, [from which] you hear a noise similar to that of thunder" and it happened again to the poet from Bellano Sigismondo Boldoni who called it "Horror of a horrendous horrendousness".
Bellano has always been linked to water: not only to that of the lake but also to that of the Orrido because, with its power, it has guaranteed for centuries the strength necessary to move the machines present in its numerous factories and consequently to guaranteeing citizens work and well-being. From the primitive system of canals and tunnels to the more modern penstock system, in fact, the waters of the Pioverna were exploited first by the ironworks, spinning mills and cotton mills and then by the more recent hydroelectric plant; all these activities have in common the place where they arise or have arisen: the mouth of the ravine, the best point to take advantage of the natural water jump.
20 мар 2022
