Lecco is a small city in northern Italy, some 50 kilometers (31 mi) north of Milan. The city lies at the end of the south-eastern branch of Lake Como.
The Bergamo Alps rise to the north and east, cut through by the Valsassina of which Lecco marks the southern end.
We visited the town of Lecco for a couple of hours in mid-November 2019, during a week trip to Italy/Switzerland. Really stunning.
Como lake near Lecco
The lake narrows to form the river Adda, so bridges were built to improve road communications with Como and Milan.
There are four bridges crossing the river Adda in Lecco: the Azzone Visconti Bridge (1336–1338), the Kennedy Bridge (1956) and the Alessandro Manzoni Bridge (1985) and a railroad bridge.
Piazza XX Settembre, in the centre of the town, and the San Martino mountain.
Archaeological finds demonstrate the presence of Celtic settlement in the area before the arrival of the Romans. The latter built a castrum here and made it an important road hub. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Lombards captured the town in the 6th century; they were followed by the Franks, who made Lecco the seat of a countship and, later, of a frontier Mark.
Emperor Otto I spent a long time in Lecco, crushing the 964 AD revolt against the Holy Roman Empire led by Lecco's Count Attone. Later it became a possession of the Milanese monastery of St. Ambrose. Conrad II also stayed in Lecco, in the attempt to free it from the church, but as the result of the ensuing wars the city was subjected by Milan. It subsequently followed the history of the Duchy of Milan and of Lombardy. In the early 16th century it was briefly ruled by the condottiere Gian Giacomo Medici.
