Valcuvia - Lake Maggiore & Lake Orta Travel Guide

The Valcuvia lies in the heart of the Varesotto. It is a broad, open valley of old villages, surrounded by high mountains (up to about 1,200 m) with beech and chestnut woods.

The Valcuvia covers the catchment area of the river Boesio, which flows into Lake Maggiore at Laveno. The northern boundary of the Valcuvia is the watershed, from which the Margorabbia flows north and joins Lake Maggiore at Luino.

A total of 20 municipalities have joined together to form the "Comunità Montana della Valcuvia", making up the geographical area of the Valcuvia.


Where the Boesio flows into Lake Maggiore lies the town of Laveno Mombello, also the main tourist attraction on this stretch of the lake. Laveno is the eastern landing point of the only car ferry crossing the lake, from Intra to Laveno.

In the direction of Varese you will find the villages of Cittiglio, Gemonio, Cocquio Trevisago and Gavirate.

The heart of the Valcuvia, however, is the villages in the Boesio valley to the north, above all Brenta, Azzio, Orino, Casalzuigno, Arcumeggia, Cuvio, Cuveglio (seat of the administrative association), Duno, Rancio Valcuvia, Masciago Primo and Cassano Valcuvia.

The fertile valley was already settled in prehistoric times. Most of the villages of the Valcuvia are documented as early as the 8th century, and the castle of Orino (Rocca di Orino) was built as a defensive stronghold. In a chequered history, control of the area passed from Como and Milan to the Visconti family. In the Cisalpine Republic of the Napoleonic reorganisation of 1797, Cuvio became the capital of the 9th district of Verbano. After that, the Valcuvia was part of Austrian Lombardy until the founding of the Italian state.

The artists' village of Arcumeggia, at 570 m, is well worth a visit.

In the 1960s, renowned Italian artists painted the house fronts here with around 170 frescoes. You will find abstract works alongside figurative and naive depictions with religious, naturalistic and secular-popular motifs. The emigration from the remote mountain villages is also a theme. Changing exhibitions are still held at the Bottega del Pittore to this day.

In Casalzuigno, the Villa Bozzolo estate is one of the finest Baroque complexes in northern Italy.

The estate dates back to the 16th century, but Villa Bozzolo acquired its present form in the second half of the 18th century.

Today the villa belongs to the Italian national trust FAI, which has beautifully restored the villa and its garden and opened them to the public.

In the Valcuvia, as in the mountains west of Lake Maggiore between Trarego Viggiona and Premeno, you can still find numerous structures of the Cadorna Line of defence, built during the First World War between summer 1915 and spring 1918. There were fears of an invasion by Austro-German troops over the passes of the Swiss central Alps into the industrial and economic centres of northern Italy. The defensive line takes its name from Field Marshal Luigi Cadorna, who has a handsome mausoleum on the lakeside promenade of Pallanza.

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