{"id":762,"date":"2026-02-19T11:16:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T11:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/?page_id=762"},"modified":"2026-02-19T11:16:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T11:16:05","slug":"oggiono2019","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/travel\/oggiono2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Oggiono, 26 December 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Carrying out my plan to devote December trips to peaceful walks, one day I decided to visit Oggiono (in the province of Lecco). It is not exactly a mountain village — despite the clearly visible proximity of the mountains — yet the presence of hills was perfectly sufficient.
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\n<\/a>In general, from an architectural point of view, it is a very ordinary provincial town: low-rise apartment blocks lacking distinctive features, ranging from a modest «rural poor» style to a moderately well-off one.
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\n<\/a>But, as so often happens in Italy, the scarcity of civic beauty is compensated for by the beauty and abundance of churches. The beauty of some — or at least their originality — is immediately apparent…
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\n<\/a>… while others must be studied carefully in order to discover particular details.
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\n<\/a>Religious themes, however, do not guarantee architectural quality. The kitsch known as the «Grotto of the Madonna» is yet another demonstration of this.
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\n<\/a>The gilded statue of Christ the King, at least, is not located in a public space but in the courtyard of a parish house.
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\n<\/a>Although religion is widely represented in the local architecture (and therefore evidently well rooted in the collective mentality), it was nevertheless deemed necessary to remind citizens — with the help of road signs — of the profession of Pope John XXIII.
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\n<\/a>At this point it must be clarified that street names in Oggiono very often indicate the direction they lead to, rather than commemorating a historical figure or geographical location. I do not know how widespread this naming practice is in Italy, but I noticed it on this scale for the first time.
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\n<\/a>There are, however, also streets dedicated to less obvious historical events or to personalities of local importance.
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\n<\/a>Some signs in the historic centre are accompanied by brown rectangles whose appearance makes me think of historical place names (those normally preceded by the word «formerly»). But I am not certain whether I have guessed the correct principle.
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\n<\/a>There is nothing unusual in the local architecture’s use of natural stone materials instead of bricks: in mountainous areas this is extremely common.
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\n<\/a>What is occasionally surprising is the use of wood where we are accustomed to seeing metal (which would seem more suited to the function of a grille).
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\n<\/a>Meanwhile, just outside the built-up area, a reassuring rural landscape begins.
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\n<\/a>The old washhouse is built directly above a stream: a rare manifestation of efficiency. The rest of the stream, in the immediate vicinity, has by now been channelled into pipes.
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\n<\/a>Elsewhere within the municipal territory I found another, more modern washhouse, whose only interesting feature is the absence of the traditional division into sections.
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\n<\/a>The brief excursion beyond the town centre led to few noteworthy discoveries, among which stands out the encounter with a panda that has decided to put down roots in Italy.
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\n<\/a>So let us return to the town. The municipal Christmas decorations are very simple and not particularly varied. Yet they may be preferable to the similar installations spotted in Teglio<\/a>.
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\n<\/a>The few flowerbeds encountered around the town are fenced in a rather un-Italian manner; to me, they seemed almost more Muscovite in style.
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\n<\/a>The majority of litter bins have nothing distinctive about them, apart from the very welcome presence of ashtrays.
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\n<\/a>Only one bin in Oggiono is truly original and unique of its kind. It rightfully joins my collection.
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\n<\/a>The monument to coffee corrected with wine might also find a place in an important collection (does anyone have other ideas as to why those two containers were paired in a single installation?).
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\nAnd thus we have seen all the most interesting features of Oggiono accessible to an ordinary casual tourist. We may depart in tranquillity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The photographic account of a tourist visit to Oggiono on 26 December 2019. My impression of the place: if you are in the area, you may stop by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":206,"menu_order":80,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-762","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/762\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eugigufo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}