The 6 best hidden towns with a serious restaurant that you can reach by train in Lombardia

1. Varenna

Best for a small town. 666 people live here.

1 h 2 min from Monza · homes €1,600 to €2,200 a m² in the center · 666 people

Why visit Varenna

Varenna sits on the eastern shore of Lake Como at the point where the lake forks into the Como and Lecco branches, opposite Bellagio and Menaggio. Local fishermen founded the village in 769.

In 1126 it was destroyed by Como during the wars between the lake's communes, and in 1169 it absorbed the refugees from the destroyed Isola Comacina. The streets fall in a steep grid toward the water, with the lakefront passerella running between the houses and the lake.

The Castello di Vezio, above the village on a spur reached by a 30-minute climb, was a Lombard watchpost reused through the Middle Ages. Villa Monastero, on the lakefront, started in the 12th century as a Cistercian convent and now runs a two-kilometer botanical garden along the shore.

The frazione of Fiumelatte hosts one of the shortest rivers in Italy, 250 meters from spring to lake.

The catch: It has lost 17% of its people since 2015.

What to see in Varenna

• Castello di Vezio. Lombard-era watchpost on a spur above the village, reached by a 30-minute climb with 160 meters of elevation gain.
• Villa Monastero. Former 12th-century Cistercian convent on the lakefront, now a museum and convention center with a 2-kilometer botanical garden along the shore.
• Villa Cipressi. Sixteenth-to-nineteenth-century lakefront villa next to Villa Monastero, with terraced gardens descending to the water.

How to get to Varenna

It has its own railway station. Monza is about 1 h 2 min away by road. The full route from Milan.

Everything we know about Varenna

2. Teglio

Best for a ski week. There is a mapped ski area in the comune.

2 h 22 min from Brescia · homes €1,000 to €1,400 a m² in the center · 4,648 people

Why visit Teglio

Teglio sits on the south-facing slope of the Valtellina, terraced vineyards dropping toward the Adda below the village and pine forest climbing behind it to the Orobie ridge. The Latin Tellina Vallis, valley of Teglio, gave the whole Valtellina its name, and the comune's own records reach back to the 9th century, when the village held the strategic center of the valley.

The upper village keeps that older, defensive character; the vineyards and the valley floor below are where the food and wine culture of the place plays out, the two halves of the town facing different directions in what they do. Pizzoccheri, buckwheat tagliatelle with savoy cabbage, potato, garlic-and-butter sauce and casera cheese, has its official home here, and Teglio holds Cittaslow status on the strength of that food culture together with the terraced viticulture below the village.

A hill town that named a valley, still turned toward the river and the vines that keep its economy going, while its height and its records point back to why it was worth holding in the first place.

The catch: The nearest airport, Milan Bergamo, is 2 h 30 min away by road.

What to see in Teglio

• Palazzo Besta. The courtyard cycle depicts Virgil's Aeneid; the upper salons hold further biblical and mythological scenes. The Antiquarium Tellinum inside holds Iron Age and Roman material from the valley.
• Accademia del Pizzocchero. The body that certifies trattorie and holds the recipe to its original form: buckwheat tagliatelle with savoy cabbage, potato, and a butter-garlic sauce alongside the cheese.
• Vigneti terrazzati della Valtellina. South-facing terraces stepping down toward the Adda, part of a viticultural landscape under UNESCO candidacy, producing Sforzato and Inferno Nebbiolo.

How to get to Teglio

It has its own railway station. Brescia is about 2 h 22 min away by road.

Everything we know about Teglio

3. Pizzighettone

Best for a slow weekend. The Touring Club gives it its orange flag for small inland towns.

30 min from Piacenza · homes €750 to €1,100 a m² in the center · 6,209 people

Why visit Pizzighettone

Pizzighettone sits on the river Adda in the Po valley at 46 meters above sea level, half an hour west of Cremona and an hour southeast of Milan. The Adda cuts the town in two: Pizzighettone proper on the east bank, the smaller Gera on the west, joined by a single bridge.

The 16th-century walls run two kilometers around the historic center, twelve meters tall and three and a half thick, and they hold a network of guardhouses called Casematte that visitors can walk through with a guide. The Torre del Guado, part of the older Rocca fortress, held the captured King Francis I of France for roughly fifty days in 1525 after his defeat at Pavia, before the Spanish transferred him to Madrid.

Most of the medieval Rocca was demolished after Italian unification; the tower is one of two that survived. The Bandiera Arancione recognizes the walls and the colourful interior of the Chiesa di San Bassiano in Gera.

What to see in Pizzighettone

• Mura e Casematte. 16th-century walls, two km long, twelve m tall, with a network of vaulted Casematte guardhouses open to visits.
• Torre del Guado. Surviving tower of the Rocca, where Francis I of France was imprisoned in 1525 after his capture at the Battle of Pavia.
• Chiesa di San Bassiano. Parish church in the Gera quarter, known for its richly painted interior, claimed locally as the most colourful church in Italy.

How to get to Pizzighettone

It has its own railway station. Piacenza is about 30 min away by road. The full route from Milan.

Everything we know about Pizzighettone

4. Laveno-Mombello

1 h 14 min from Novara · homes €1,350 to €1,700 a m² in the center · 8,319 people

Why visit Laveno-Mombello

Laveno-Mombello sits on Lake Maggiore's eastern shore in the province of Varese, where a limestone wall drops directly to the water at the town's back. The ferry here crosses to Verbania and the Borromean Islands on the opposite shore, making the town as much a hinge point between Lombardia and Piemonte as a destination in itself.

Cerro, the lakefront hamlet folded into the town, kept the workshops after the ceramics factories closed in the 1990s, and its Palazzo Perabò now holds the museum that charts that industry from 1856 forward. South along the shore, a fifteen-minute drive reaches the monastery built into the cliff face, reachable by stairs, lift or boat where the road does not reach directly.

The town's shape follows the lake and the rock in equal measure: industry and transit at the shoreline, the mountain rising straight behind it, and the monastery holding on to the cliff a short way south as if the same geology that made Laveno a port also made it a place for building into stone.

What to see in Laveno-Mombello

• MIDeC – Museo Internazionale Design Ceramico. Ceramics design museum in the sixteenth-century Palazzo Perabò at Cerro, covering Laveno production from 1856 to the 1990s.
• Sasso del Ferro. Limestone summit reached by the bucket funicular, with a terrace looking across Lake Maggiore to Lago d'Orta and the southern Alps.
• Santa Caterina del Sasso. Fourteenth-century monastery clinging to a cliff above Lake Maggiore, fifteen minutes south, reached by stairs, lift or boat.

How to get to Laveno-Mombello

It has its own railway station. Novara is about 1 h 14 min away by road. The full route from Milan.

Everything we know about Laveno-Mombello

5. Iseo

Best for everyday life on foot. Eight of the ten everyday services we look for are mapped within 500 meters of the center.

28 min from Brescia · homes €2,000 to €2,600 a m² in the center · 8,979 people

Why visit Iseo

Iseo sits at 198 meters on the southeast shore of Lake Iseo, the fourth-largest lake in Lombardia, fed by the Oglio. First recorded in the ninth century as a holding of the Brescian monastery of San Salvatore, the town grew under the Sozzi, the Isei, and finally the Oldofredi.

From 1428 to 1797 Iseo was part of the Republic of Venice. The lakefront and the vineyards to the south form the town's two working halves: one facing the water and the ferries that cross it, the other rising into the Franciacorta hills where the metodo classico grapes are grown.

Ferries from the lakefront connect to Monte Isola, the largest lake island in Italy, and to Sarnico across the water in Bergamo province. A lake town that turned its inland edge to wine and its waterfront to the island: the two directions, water and vineyard, still define how the town is used.

What to see in Iseo

• Castello Oldofredi. The stone fortress stands above the lakefront, its walls facing the water rather than the town center, a reminder that it was built to watch the lake approach.
• Pieve di Sant'Andrea. Founded, by tradition, by Bishop Vigilio of Brescia around 500, the church keeps its bell tower set into the middle of the façade rather than beside or behind it, an arrangement rare among Lombard Romanesque buildings.
• Piazza Garibaldi. Main lakeside square with what is described as the first non-equestrian statue of Garibaldi, by Pietro Bordini, unveiled in 1883, the year after his death.

How to get to Iseo

It has its own railway station. Brescia is about 28 min away by road. The full route from Verona.

Everything we know about Iseo

6. Curtatone

Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.

48 min from Verona · homes €1,100 to €1,300 a m² in the center · 14,739 people

Why visit Curtatone

Curtatone is a Mantova commune of eight frazioni in the Parco del Mincio, with its seat at Montanara and its most visited fraction at Grazie. The Santuario della Beata Vergine delle Grazie was commissioned in 1406 by Francesco I Gonzaga and stands on the edge of the Mincio's lower bend, surrounded by lotus flowers that bloom across the river in July and August.

On 29 May 1848, Tuscan and Neapolitan volunteers held this stretch of ground against Austrian forces under Radetzky long enough for the Piedmontese army to reorganize at Goito the following day. The battle is remembered nationally as Curtatone e Montanara.

Every year around Ferragosto the Antichissima Fiera delle Grazie fills the square in front of the sanctuary; since 1973 the fair has hosted the Incontro Nazionale dei Madonnari, with over a hundred chalk artists working through the night on the pavement around the church.

What to see in Curtatone

• Santuario della Beata Vergine delle Grazie. 1406 Gonzaga sanctuary on the Mincio bend, with a unique wooden ex-voto wall lining the nave, and the burial of Baldassarre Castiglione.
• Parco del Mincio. Riverine nature reserve around Grazie, with lotus flower expanses that bloom mid-July through August on the lower Mincio.
• Monument to the Battle of Curtatone and Montanara. Memorial to the 1848 stand by Tuscan and Neapolitan volunteers against Austrian forces under Radetzky on 29 May.

How to get to Curtatone

It has its own railway station. Verona is about 48 min away by road. The full route from Verona.

Everything we know about Curtatone