A land steeped in history
Varese is the Italian province with the most UNESCO sites, together spanning 240 million years of history.
1. Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps
Isolino Virginia (the “Virginia islet”) is a prehistoric pile-dwelling site in Lake Varese, part of the UNESCO serial site “Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps”. This small island preserves the traces of pile-dwelling villages dating back to the Bronze Age — a rare window onto the lakeside life of prehistoric Europe.
Discover the pile-dwelling sites →
2. Monte San Giorgio
Straddling the border between Italy and Switzerland, Monte San Giorgio owes its UNESCO listing to an extraordinary wealth of fossils. Its Triassic deposits, laid down 240 million years ago, hold perfectly preserved marine fossils that chart the evolution of life in the earliest oceans.
3. Sacro Monte di Varese
The Sacro Monte di Varese (“Sacred Mountain”), inscribed since 2003 in the UNESCO serial site “Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy”, is a devotional route that winds past 14 frescoed chapels to the Basilica of Santa Maria del Monte. It ranks among the finest expressions of sacred art and Baroque architecture in Lombardy, set in a natural landscape of exceptional beauty.
4. Castelseprio-Torba
The archaeological site of Castelseprio, with the remains of an important medieval Longobard settlement, and the Monastery of Torba, founded as a military outpost and later a religious centre for Benedictine nuns, have been part of the UNESCO serial site “Longobards in Italy: Places of Power” since 2011.
The NeoBodio Museum of Bodio Lomnago
In the NeoBodio Museum will open in Bodio Lomnago, on the shores of Lake Varese: major archaeological finds recovered from the lakebed, a reconstruction of a pile-dwelling hut, and an immersive room screening never-before-seen footage of the pile-dwelling sites beneath the lakes of the Varese area.
DISCOVER THE MUSEUM →