Varese Tourism and Travel

travelcycling

Aug 21

Getting to Varese from Bergamo takes about 4.5-5 hours and 3-4 trains. This city is comparable to Mestre in that it seems mostly working class people and immigrants living around here and commuting to all the little industrial towns between Varese and Milan.

Tourism wise, there isn’t much. The museums are small and there’s no iconic roman constructions. The main attraction seems to be the Sacro Monte

Sacro Monte

“The Sacri Monti (plural of Sacro Monte, Italian for "Sacred Mountain") of Piedmont and Lombardy are a series of nine calvaries or groups of chapels and other architectural features created in northern Italy during the late sixteenth century and the seventeenth century. They are dedicated to various aspects of the Christian faith and are considered of great beauty by virtue of the skill with which they have been integrated into the surrounding natural landscape of hills, forests and lakes. They also house important artistic materials in the form of wall paintings and statuary. In 2003, they were named as a World Heritage Site.”

You can reach it easily with public transit then either climb up to the city from a bus stop or go all the way to the funicular station and start directly in the city then go back down.

The bottom gate where you start the ascent on foot

Funicular station with fat dude who was breathing real hard

Basically a giant elevator

The main church in the town

You're not supposed to take pictures so I took this awful one...

There's really great views of the region

On clear days you can see some of the naked peaks of the alps in the distance

Lots of cafes/ restaurants on top here of course

Nearing the town on the grassy cobbles. It's about a 30 minute walk

Italy is also infested with these wall lizards that come out when you stop moving

One of the cavalries along the way.

Villa Mirabello Civic Museum

In the nicer part of town next to the big garden of the Estense Palace gardens. It’s a pretty small museum dedicated mainly to the Italian exploration of Africa.
They have a lot of interesting artifacts but everything is in Italian. You also get access to the Castello di Masnago museum but it’s a 30 minute walk and I was too lazy.

I’d skip this museum…

Main sections about all the Italian explorers and their finds

Lot of travel logs/ instruments / publications

Some looted ( er donated ) artifacts from 19th-20th century

Just turning an elephant foot into a trash can, why not

They have many African artifacts from the last 500 years

Yes they are all ugly lol

You think these are ancient but they're all from the 1900s

Small section on the Italian war of independance

Few roman scraps ( columns and headstones )

Temporary exhibit about various primitive housing around the world

For some reason there's a mummy in here

Italy has a bunch of mummies not looted from Egypt in fact

Typical fare of neolithic artifacts

Some more centered around lake living given the region

Reconstruction of a possible neolithic dwelling on wooden piles

For some reason a big ( badly lit ) display case of hummingbirds

They kind of just stuck it in a corner and forgot about it lol

Castiglioni Museum

One of the weirdest museum experience as I was the only one here, arriving just in time for the volunteers to open ( 20 minutes late ). I wanted to just visit it alone but one of the ladies eventually came up silently behind me then wanted me to watch their video in Italian and she’d try to explain. She followed me the entire time, mostly silently. I’d take a step, she’d take a step. It’s a unique museum in Italy she said, as it’s the only one about Africa ( other than the one I was just in…)

It’s a collection of things the Castiglioni brothers brought back from Africa during their travels there from the 60s to the 90s.

Human for scale haha

Reproductions of neolithic carvings found in caves/random rocks

They depict a trap system that a tribe was still using in the 1960s

Small weird exhibit on the Tuareg people

I didn’t take more pictures because the lady was right there watching me and it felt weird. They have a display of an old caravan that died of thirst in the desert, with a mummified camel. It smelled like what you’d think a mummy would smell like…
The carvings were interesting as they showed animals like crocodiles that used to live in a region that is now desert. Tells you how old they are.

Il Santuario Madonna del Ghisallo

Atop the Ghisallo pass on lake como. Just a small church that is repurposed into a cycling shrine, with tons of cycling-related artifacts and memorabilia.

Inside of the church

Vintage bikes and who rode them

This is quite a place if you're interested in cycling

There's a century of history in here and it overflows into the museum next door

Signed/donated jerseys. The collection must be worth millions

They did sneak a weird little suckling Jesus in there too

Ghisallo Cycling Museum

This has got to be the best cycling museum in the world, it’s absolutely full of priceless artifacts from all the most prestigious races and riders over a century. Very bike friendly of course so you can visit it no problem while doing your ride. They give you a bike lock and even crocs so you don’t have to walk around in bike shoes!
The one museum I was happy to support with buying souvenirs.

I don't know how people wear these, they are garbage

View of the whole museum. They just filled the entire building

They have dozens of vintage bikes in various conditions

Hundreds of signed jerseys worn by winners of the most prestigious events

I don't watch cycling or care but even I understand how cool this is

Bikes and jerseys of Pogacar, the current best rider in the world ( by a lot )

A signed bike that won the Tour de France. Can't get better than this as an artifact

Like a worn Gretzky jersey

Temporary Eddy Mercx exhibit, the man who dominated the 60s and 70s

All on loan from private collection. Who has this stuff? It's insane

Many jerseys with dirt/sweat marks still. Are they worth more unwashed? Probably

Bikes haven't changed... that much in 120 years

Biggest bike in Italy. I assume vaguely functional

One of the best part are all the proto-bikes reconstructions

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee

18th century "bike"

I want to see a tour on this thing

Davinci bike recreated from one of his drawings.

That was it, time to head back!
6am train from Varese to Milan, huge lineup to check-in. Made it with 10 minutes to spare then they almost screwed me completely as I was connecting in France. Literally 5 seconds to spare.
Airports are by far the worst thing about these trips. Not flying. Airports.

You only put this up when you're chronically incompetent

Flying over nuclear plant on the way to landing in Paris! Don't see that every day

Landing in Paris. You can sort of make out the Eiffel Tower and other tourist hotspots

Rest of the trip was fine other than they forgot my bike bag in Milan and took 2 days to deliver it back to me. It’s insured only up to 3000$ by the airlines btw so if they decide to just outright steal your bike bag, you’re shit out of luck. Might consider buying insurance in the future…

Well that was quite a trip!

Thanks for looking at some of my way too many pictures. I’ll probably condense these more in the future if I do it again, I spent a solid hour every day just editing photos and writing.