The plateau on which Leffe stands is the bed of a lake. It formed about one million eight hundred thousand years ago, when the debris carried down by the Serio blocked the mouth of the Romna stream and the water had nowhere left to go; the basin lasted eight hundred thousand years, and in the meantime its floor rose about a hundred and thirty metres as sediment gathered. When the barrier gave way the lake emptied, and what remained is the plain one sees today.
That lake left an archive. In the village's lignite mines fossilised plants, shells and animal remains have come to light, and they are now in the natural history museums of Milan and Bergamo; the first finds go back to the end of the eighteenth century. In 1991 core samples taken in a disused kiln found traces of trees that have died out in Europe and grow today only in Asia and America. The name of the village, on the other hand, appears for the first time in a document of 903, in the form Leufo.
Risotto alla Milanese
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Next up: Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Martin, patrons of the Dragon Fight, Wednesday 11 November
Nearest airport: Bergamo Orio al Serio, 19 km away
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📅 Every year, on 11 November
Leffe celebrates Saint Michael the Archangel and Saint Martin on 11 November. The church sacristy holds the seventeenth-century canvas by Simone Brentana depicting Saint Michael's Fight against the Dragon.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
