Blevio: a panoramic terrace overlooking Como Lake

Blevio is an Italian town in Como’s territory, situated in a panoramic position on the eastern shore of Como Lake. It is divided into seven fractions, called "seven cities".

The town of Blevio offers many tourist attractions to visit, whether religious or not. Among the places of worship worth visiting, the Church of SS Gordian and Epimachus is probably the most important one. It was built in the second half of the Eighteenth century on the ruins of an existing church and it has a beautiful two orders façade, crowned by a tympanum. Inside of it is preserved a seventeenth-century painting attributed to Nuvolone.

In the area of Blevio you can find several charming villas, all of them overlooking Como Lake. Those of them who particularly stand out are: Villa Roccabruna, Villa Al Poncett, Villa Cademartori, Villa Ravasi, Villa Troubetzkoy, Villa Da Riva and Villa Belvedere, with its beautiful adjacent park. It is strongly advised to make a boat trip on the lake, so you can admire the magnificence of all these buildings.

You can also find monuments and historic places in Blevio, the most characteristic of which is undoubtedly the Castle of Ardona, built by Angelo Ruspini in 1894 and now in ruins. Following Ruspini’s death, his housekeeper, who quickly gave it up to the “Gruppo Aziendale Tintoria Comense”, inherited the bizarre building. The castle was at first used as a summer camp for the children of employees and then it was later abandoned.
Other attractions in the area include the Portico Carlo Sacco, the War Memorial and the Monument to Enrico Caronti.

Blevio’s main attraction is however the legendary Nairola Stone, which is located on the path leading from Brunate to Montepiatto, through the mountains of Blevio. This is a huge flat granite table 7.4 meters long, 4 meters wide and 5 meters high. The monolith is located at 750 meters high, in a very prominent position along the slope of the mountain. This particular stone comes from the Val Masino and is part of those boulders that were transported from Alpine glaciers during the Neozoic age. Like many other prehistoric boulders from that era, the Nairola Stone also presents some incisions, especially in the form of shells; those are small concavities carved into the rock, having probably a ritual meaning.