Varese

Varese spreads across seven hills between the Prealps and its own lake, a garden city where a UNESCO-listed sacred mountain rises behind elegant villas and a medieval baptistery stands among the shops. Green, cultured and unhurried, it rewards travellers who give this Lombard capital more than a glance.

Why visit

Varese earns a full day from almost nothing but hills, water and art. Its defining spectacle is the Sacred Mount of Varese: a two-kilometre avenue of fourteen seventeenth-century chapels climbing to the sanctuary of Santa Maria del Monte, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as part of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, with the whole route inside the Campo dei Fiori regional park. Below, the city lives up to its garden-city reputation — the Italian gardens of Palazzo Estense, which Giacomo Leopardi thought resembled a small Versailles, the water features of Villa Toeplitz, and villa terraces over Lake Varese. Art lovers have an unusual pairing here: an eighteenth-century FAI villa hung with one of Europe’s great collections of contemporary art, and civic museums of archaeology and modern painting in castles and villas across town. Add a lakeside cycle loop past a prehistoric pile-dwelling islet and a morning market under medieval arcades, and the imbalance tips decisively toward staying a night or two.

Character and history

The city’s recorded life begins in the early Middle Ages around the sanctuary hill, and its old coat of arms dates to the mid-fourteenth century; in 1859 Garibaldi confronted Austrian forces nearby. Nineteenth-century tourism and twentieth-century industry — aviation, motorcycles, manufacturing names of European fame — gave Varese its double temperament: an elegant resort past and an inventive engineering present, the province behind some of Italy’s best-known marques and the cycling tradition that brought the Road World Championships here. The Seven Hills on which the city stands are still legible in its climbs and villas, and its rainfall — among the heaviest in Italy — explains the gardens. What holds the ensemble together is the Sacred Mount: the city below has always been oriented toward it, and the walk from the urban edge to the sanctuary remains the route by which Varese best introduces itself.

What to see

Begin on the hill: the Sacred Mount of Varese unites the chapels and the shaded seventeenth-century avenue, ending at the Sanctuary of Santa Maria del Monte with its crypt. Beside the sanctuary, the Museo Baroffio and of the Sanctuary Museum gathers sacred art, and the Lodovico Pogliaghi House Museum preserves the Milanese artist’s home at the avenue’s end. In the city, the Basilica of San Vittore and the medieval Baptistery of San Giovanni Battista anchor the old centre near the Palazzo Pretorio, Piazza del Podestà and Sala Veratti.

The villas form the second circuit: Villa Panza and Collection, where the FAI shows the Panza family’s contemporary art in an eighteenth-century setting; the adjacent Villa Menafoglio Litta Panza; the Palazzo Estense and Italian Gardens, the city’s baroque town hall; and Villa Toeplitz and Park with its fountains. Museums fill in the story — the Villa Mirabello and Civic Archaeological Museum, the frescoed Masnago Castle – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Castiglioni Civic Ethnographic Museum, and the Isolino Virginia Archaeological Area and Andrea Ponti Civic Museum on the lake islet where Neolithic pile-dwelling finds were first made in 1863. Finish outdoors on the Campo dei Fiori Regional Nature Park trails, past the Tower of Velate, or on the Lake Varese Cycle and Foot Path.

How to experience

Climb the Sacred Mount on foot rather than by road — the chapel sequence only works at walking pace, and the sanctuary piazza turns back the whole plain. Devote the afternoon to Villa Panza: the site-specific light works in its rooms are among the most memorable installations in northern Italy, and the park deserves its own half hour. Next morning, cycle the lake loop when the water is still, visiting the Isolino by the museum’s boat arrangements. Market day brings the historic centre alive; pair it with the basilica, baptistery and an espresso under the arcades. Garden and museum hours shift seasonally and several villas close weekly — check sacromontedivarese.it, fondoambiente.it and museivarese.it before setting out. Rain is always possible; the museums make a graceful bad-weather plan.

Practical planning

Varese lies about 55 km north-west of Milan, at 382 m altitude, reached by the A8 motorway or Trenord and TILO trains, with Malpensa airport some 35 km away. The city climbs, so plan routes around the two hills — the Sacred Mount above Santa Maria del Monte and the villa quarter of Biumo. Parking is easiest outside the centre, and the cycle path around Lake Varese starts from the southern shore. The regional park information points and the city Infopoint distribute trail maps. Spring and autumn suit the hill walks; summer evenings on the sanctuary piazza are cool even in August. Comfortable shoes and a light rain layer are the sensible kit here.

Nearby places

The city makes a good base for exploring further Lombard lake country: Lake Como lies to the east beyond the hills, and the alpine corridor of Valtellina to the north makes a full-day excursion by car or rail.