Pianengo

The name Pianengo ends in -engo, and that alone says the settlement is Lombard. What the village most has of its own, though, lies outside the built-up area, along the Serio: the Palata Menasciutto nature reserve, straddling the river between Pianengo and Ricengo, created to protect the riparian environment grown up around two dead arms of the Serio. A "palata" was the barrier of wooden stakes with which the river was closed off to draw water for irrigation; today the barrier is concrete, and out of it comes the Menasciutto watercourse, which gives the reserve its name. Kingfishers and green woodpeckers nest here, migrating ducks and herons stop over, and rare plants grow, such as hairy honeysuckle and the military orchid.

Inside the reserve there are also two small lakes that were once quarries: the Laghetto dei Riflessi and the Laghetto della Rana Rossa, pits from which gravel and sand were dug and which have filled with rain and floodwater, becoming reservoirs of biodiversity. Along the narrow country lane that leads to the reserve from Ricengo stands the chapel of the Dead of the Serio, rebuilt in 1855 on an older one to remember the fallen of the battle of 18 October 1705 between the army of Prince Eugene of Savoy and the troops of marshal Vendôme. The village, meanwhile, has changed fast: since 1961 its population has doubled, and in 2008 the old route of the Cremasca road through the built-up area was downgraded.