Colico is the last village on the eastern shore of Lake Como, where the Adda enters the lake below Monte Legnone, the highest mountain in the province of Lecco. Four low hills, the montecchi, rise from the alluvial fans of the Inganna and Perlino streams and have given the town its nickname, “city of the montecchi”. The name is still argued over: one likely reading takes it from the Latin caput lacus, at the head of the lake, another from collis, those same hills.
A border land between Milan and the Grisons, Colico was raised to a county by Charles V in 1550. The count of Fuentes, Spanish governor of Milan, had a fortress built here to command the upper lake, the Valtellina and the Valchiavenna; Napoleon had it pulled down in 1796. In The Betrothed, Manzoni recalls Colico as the first land of the duchy overrun by the lansquenets who brought the plague. In 1902 the railway from here up to Sondrio was the first anywhere to run a train on high-voltage three-phase current.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Colico
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Colico, but an easy day trip away.