An island of rock amid the first plateaus of Brianza, Monte Barro rises like a kind of Sugarloaf above the foothill lakes and the first kilometres of the Lecco branch of Lake Como. A narrow road, decidedly overcrowded for its width, climbs its steep slopes to a height of about 700 metres, that is, to the famous Eremo del Monte Barro, where a large hotel building from the early twentieth century stands. Today the building houses a large restaurant and the headquarters of the Parco del Monte Barro, with some exhibition spaces (a natural history museum and the Museo Archeologico del Barro, which holds finds from the nearby Ostrogothic excavations).
The ascent from the Eremo is fairly steep, but suitable for everyone. The ascent from the south side, on the other hand, is a little more demanding (a few fun rock slabs and chains).
We drive up from Galbiate following the signs for the Eremo; after a few kilometres of narrow winding road, we take a turn-off on the right signposted for the bird observatory at Costa Perla. We drive up this road and look for somewhere to park (m612). The path starts just to the right of the bird observatory, running close to the outer fence. In a few minutes we leave the woods and reach a large tree near a junction: straight ahead is the path to the Eremo, by which we will come back, while we turn right and climb towards a notch with a view over Lecco and the Resegone.
Here we begin the climb to the summit, over short rocky steps and chains, to arrive at the summit cross (m922, 45 minutes).
For the descent we use the normal path instead, the one that comes up from the Eremo. We drop quickly to a transmitter mast, then keep right to follow the little hairpins of the Giovanni Fornaciari botanical trail, which can offer interesting glimpses of the Grigne. A few more steps and we reach the massive beech trees that shade the Eremo del Monte Barro (m732, 30 minutes). A panoramic terrace on the roof of the building lets us admire the view over the plain once more.
To get back to the car, we take the cobbled path that descends in front of the building. In a handful of minutes we are back at the junction we passed on the way up (m612, 20 minutes).
