Baveno

Information and places of interest

Situated between Lake Maggiore and the mountains, on the delta of the Selva Spessa stream and on the slopes of Mount Camoscio and Mottarone, Baveno combines the characteristics of a tourist and industrial location. The unique and privileged position in front of the Borromean Gulf makes the city an interesting tourist destination.
Until the 18th century, the local economy was predominantly based on agriculture and the activity of eleven small mills and a press; at the same time, the trade of wood and coal was very active, while a new activity was emerging in the economic panorama of the lake: the excavation of pink granite, which in the 19th century took on an industrial dimension due to strong technological development, with the advent of mines and water saws.
In the 19th century, the first hotels were built where illustrious guests such as Schubert and Alexandre Dumas stayed. During the Second World War, the Belle Vue hotel was the headquarters of the German garrison.

PLACES OF INTEREST

- CHURCH OF SAINTS GERVASO AND PROTASO: built around the 11th century and consecrated on 25 July 1345. Renovated in the 17th and 18th centuries, it retains the characteristic aspects of the Romanesque style on the façade and in part of the side wall. The façade has a gabled shape, with squared stones in which elegant hanging and flying arches are inserted. The portal, with an archivolt, is large, with capitals decorated with plant motifs, in front of which a small portico was built in 1841, destroyed in 1935. Originally the church had a single, large nave, but subsequent renovations led to the creation of lateral buttresses, chapels, a vaulted roof, an apse and a sacristy.

- BAPTISTERY: it is a building dating back to the Renaissance period, but in reality it dates back to the 5th century. Externally it appears to be square in plan, but inside it corresponds to the original octagonal plan, with a dome frescoed around the 16th century, and alternating rectangular and semicircular niches. It has a high Romanesque vault, completely frescoed. In front there is a portico supported by four granite columns.

- PORTICATO DELLA VIA CRUCIS: adjacent to the Church it was built in 1839 after the cemetery was moved, which, with its valuable round arches, supported by granite columns, increases the beauty of the place. A small appendix that seems to belong to the portico is instead the chapel of the Sepulchre.

- CASA MORANDI: located in the ancient Domo district, the house, dating back to the 18th century, has four floors connected to the outside by stairs and with a gallery on each floor. The contemporary additions counterfeit what must have been the original appearance; the masonry remains exposed, with schist stones in irregular courses, which end in corners of rough-hewn stones.

- VILLA FEDORA: just beyond the Selva Spessa stream, stands this villa immersed in the coolness of the Municipal Park. The most notable part of the house, the one overlooking the lake, is enlivened by colonnades that form overlapping porticoes between the ground floor and the first floor; a series of symmetrical windows, with pale green shutters that stand out against the yellow walls, give a good idea of the nineteenth-century house.
Built in 1857, it was used for many years as the headquarters of the National Organization for Maternity and Childhood (ONMI), sold in the 1960s to the Chamber of Commerce of Novara (now Verbania). The park of the villa is open to the public and inside you can admire the most typical examples of local flora.

- VILLA BRANCA: built between 1871 and 1873 in English Gothic style, constructed of exposed red bricks. Inside the park there are two chapels for the Anglican and Catholic rite. Illustrious guests of this villa, not open to the public, were Frederick III and Queen Victoria.
In January 2007 the villa was seriously damaged by a fire; a restoration, however, brought the residence back to its original splendor.

- VILLA DELLA CASA: built in 1875, it is designed in Swiss style with beautiful sculpted balconies. On the main facade there is the motto of the Della Casa company "Labor Prima Virtis". Along the facades there are terracotta roundels depicting historical and cultural personalities. Inside the garden there is an imposing specimen of Ginkgo biloba planted in 1875 and today among the largest in Europe.

- VILLA MUSSI: located in the Oltrefiume district, it is a composite structure with an extremely irregular plan, a subsequent union of different bodies; the main one dates back to the second half of the 17th century. Its façade, facing south, shows a central loggia with three orders of superimposed monolithic columns, and on the sides there are two asymmetrical wings. The large park, adjacent to the villa and connected to it by an underpass, is now a public municipal park.

- MUSEO GRANUM: the museum space, housed in a room of the historic Palazzo Pretorio, is a multimedia and multisensory IT point dedicated to Pink granite and its historical and economic importance for the territory of Baveno, also designed to represent the wealth of routes and places of stone processing in the Verbano Cusio Ossola territory.
The exhibition space is divided into four thematic areas, starting with the presentation of pink granite and the most famous stone varieties of the territory. This is followed by a section dedicated to the extraordinary mineralogical rarities, one dedicated to the craft and techniques of granite processing yesterday and today, finally the history of the exploitation and use of granite in the area and abroad is traced.
GranUM, which intends to represent the historical memory of the mining activity of the entire “Granito dei Laghi” district, works in a network with the Ecomuseum of Granite of Montorfano and extends the enhancement activity throughout the territory of Baveno. The most significant extension of the Open-Air Museum is the Picasass trail, a hiking trail that leads to the mining area of Monte Camoscio. It takes its name from the dialect term used to indicate the quarrymen and leads to a landscape installation with stone blocks in various stages of processing and photographic panels with work scenes. The continuation of the trail leads on one side to the Picasass via ferrata and on the other allows you to reach the top of Monte Camoscio and connect with the itinerary for the summit of Mottarone.