| The Liberty in Cernobbio, Como and Brunate | |
 | |
| Itinerary type | Automotive |
|---|---|
| State |  Italy |
| Region | Lombardy |
| Territory | Comasco |
| Start | Cernobbio |
| end | Brunate |
The Liberty in Cernobbio, Como and Brunate is an itinerary that develops through the Lombardy.
Introduction
The Como Riviera del Lario it is characterized by an important presence of villas and other style buildings Liberty. This itinerary is designed to cover the most important examples of this architectural style present in Cernobbio, Como is Brunate.
How to get
 | To learn more, see: How to get to Cernobbio. |
Stages
Liberty in Cernobbio, Como and Brunate: full screen map.Cernobbio
- 1 Pier of Piazza Risorgimento
- 2 Villa Erba
- 3 Villa Bernasconi
Como
- 4 Carducci Institute
- 5 Politeama
- 6 Piazza Cavour
- 7 Pier of Piazza Cavour
- 8 Terminus hotel
- 9 Como Nord-Lago station
Brunate
- 10 Como-Brunate funicular
- 11 Former Grand Hotel Milan
- 12 Villa Pirotta Bonacossa
- 13 Villa Cantaluppi Giuliani
- 14 Villa Pierreard Marinoni Schmidlin
- 15 Villa Farneti Maggioni
Cernobbio
Our itinerary starts from Cernobbio, a renowned international tourist resort overlooking the Lake Como. You can find information on how to reach Cernobbio in related article.
Pier of Piazza Risorgimento
What better place to start our Liberty tour than the landing stage, a place of arrivals and departures and the first showcase of the city for those arriving from the lake? The building, built in Liberty style in 1906, dominates the south-eastern section of Piazza Risorgimento, overlooking the war memorial by the sculptor Angelo Galli.
Villa Bernasconi
From Piazza Risorgimento, along via Luigi Erba which runs alongside the park of Villa Erba, we turn left at the roundabout and continue along via Regina passing the town hall and Cernobbio (on the right) and continuing for another 270 meters. We are thus in Largo Alfredo Campanini, which takes its name from the architect who in 1906 was commissioned by the knight Davide Bernasconi for the design of Villa Bernasconi.
The villa is spread over two floors to which are added the basement and a turret. The main vertical connecting element is the central staircase which becomes a panoramic tower continuing in height beyond the upper floor. There are two main decorative features of the building: the wrought iron work by Alessandro Mazzucotelli that can be found in the gate, in the parapets of the stairs and balconies and in some windows, and the friezes in hammered cement plaster depicting figures from the life cycle of the worm. from silk (worms, flowers and butterflies), magnified in size and hypertrophic in their development. The same elements are found in the ceramic tiles that run along the facades.
Today the villa houses the homonymous museum focused on Liberty and the Bernasconi family (official site).
Como
After visiting the splendid Villa Bernasconi, we can continue our tour towards Como. We can do it on foot (about 3.5 km), by bicycle, by bus (the stop is in front of Villa Bernasconi) or by boat, reaching the Tavernola pier on the road to Como or returning to Cernobbio. The timetables of the boats can be found on the site of the Lakes Navigation.
If we have chosen the bus we must get off at the Viale Cavallotti - Via Gallio stop, and head along Viale Cavallotti to the lake. Arriving by boat it is sufficient to travel a stretch of the Lungolario towards the west (leaving the landing stage behind, we go right).
If instead we have chosen to use our legs, we have to walk along the lakefront to the "Amici di Como" park, and then take Viale Cavallotti. On the way we will be able to cross the park of Villa Olmo, a splendid residence overlooking the lake, which can also be visited inside.
Carducci Institute
Once you have taken via Felice Cavallotti, we are immediately on the right the Carducci Institute, headquarters of the association of the same name. The building is made up of two parts: the original nucleus with a triangular plan from 1909 designed by Cesare Mazzocchi and the subsequent extension with a U, connected to the previous one by a covered terrace porch.
Politeama
Continuing along via Cavallotti, just before looking out onto piazza Cacciatori delle Alpi we can see an imposing building - unfortunately now in a state of neglect - dating back to 1910. It is the former Politeama cinema, which in 2013 was the site of some shooting of the film. Human capital by Paolo Virzì.
Piazza Cavour
From Politeama, take via Giuseppe Caribaldi to reach piazza Alessandro Volta, dominated by the statue of the famous inventor from Como, and then continue along via Domenico Fontana to piazza Cavour. Over the centuries, the square has had various functions: from a city port to a tramway crossroads, from a parking lot to a good living room in the Larian capital. In 1868 the port that once stood here was buried and transformed into a square overlooked by hotels and banks in Art Nouveau style, still visible today, which were to serve as a visiting card for the city, increasingly more touristy. In the center of the square there was also a fountain, which was later sold in 1891 to the Rockefeller and moved to New York, in Bronx Park.
Pier of Piazza Cavour
From the square, looking at the lake, the landing stage is clearly visible, the arrival and departure point of the boats that reach the main towns overlooking the lake.
Terminus hotel
Como Nord-Lago station
Brunate
Como-Brunate funicular
From the Como Nord-Lago station we must now head towards another station: the departure station of the Como-Brunate funicular. To reach it, take via Alessandro Manzoni towards piazza Amendola, where the church of Sant'Agostino is located. We then return to the Lungolario to the north, keeping the lake on our left. We will find ourselves at a certain point at the Como funicular station.
The infrastructure was inaugurated on November 11, 1894 and has four stops: the two terminus in Como (piazza De Gasperi) and Brunate (piazza Bonacossa) and two stops on request in Como Alta and Carescione (fraction of Brunate). The section is single-track, doubling halfway to allow the crossing of the car uphill with the one downhill.
In the middle of the route, on the landing of the roadhouse built next to the exchange, there is the so-called Mezzogiorno cannon: installed in 1912, in service until the seventies of the twentieth century and reactivated in 1990, every day at noon it fires a blank shot .
The journey lasts seven minutes and the service runs every day from 6:00 to 22:30 (on Saturdays and in summer the shift is extended until 24:00), with departures as a rule every half hour, which become every quarter of 'now during peak times. Rates and timetables are available on the website funicular.it.
