Spring hikes on Lake Como

Hikes to do in spring around Lake Como, when the Prealps are already free of snow: San Primo, Grona, Moregallo and Cornizzolo.

The Prealps around Lake Como are the first mountains in Lombardy to lose their snow, and from as early as March to May they allow hikes that would be impossible further north, with the lake at your feet and the Alps still white on the horizon.

Here you will find the hikes in the Triangolo Lariano and the Lecco area that we recommend in spring, from the short climb to the Croce di Muggio to the San Primo loop with lunch at the Rifugio Martina.

An abbey and two winds

The climb to Monte Cornizzolo passes one of the most important Romanesque monuments in Lombardy: San Pietro al Monte, above Civate, a small monastic complex built mostly in the eleventh century at about 650 metres and reachable only on foot along a mule track. The church holds a fresco cycle inspired by the Book of Revelation, whose dating is still debated between the second half of the eleventh century and the first half of the twelfth, as well as stucco work and a crypt with high reliefs of the lives of Christ and the Virgin. Opening and visits are managed by the Amici di San Pietro association, so days and times should be checked before you set off.

Anyone walking above the lake soon learns to read the wind. The Tivano blows down from the north in the morning and the Breva comes up from the south in the afternoon, two thermal winds driven by the temperature difference between the mountains, the lake and the plain, and in spring the Breva can make the ridges of the Triangolo Lariano cooler and windier than the morning sun suggests. Beneath those ridges lies one of the deepest lakes in Europe, with a maximum depth that Encyclopaedia Britannica gives as 414 metres, a figure that makes more sense when you watch the slopes plunge into the water from the top of the Moregallo or the Croce di Muggio.