 Lombardy,
Italy's richest and most developed region, often seems
to have more in common with its northern European
neighbors than with the rest of Italy. Given its
history, this is hardly surprising: it was ruled for
almost two centuries by the French and Austrians and
takes its name from the northern Lombards, who invaded
the region and ousted the Romans. As a border region,
accessible through numerous mountain passes, Lombardy
has always been vulnerable to invasion, just as it has
always profited by being a commercial crossroads. It was
long viewed by northerners as the capital of Italy -
emperors from Charlemagne to Napoleon came to Lombardy
to be crowned king - and northern European business
magnates continue to take Lombardy's capital, Milan,
more seriously than Rome, the region's big businesses
and banks wielding political as well as economic power
across the nation.
The region's landscape has paid the price for economic
success: industry chokes the peripheries of towns,
sprawls across the Po plain in the south, and even
spreads its polluting tentacles into the northern lakes
and mountain valleys. Nonetheless Lombardy has its
attractions: the upper reaches of its valleys are
largely unspoiled; its towns and cities all retain
wanderable medieval cores; and the stunning scenery and
lush vegetation of the lakes make it easy to forget that
the water is not sparkling clean.
For the traveler, all of this is much less evident than
the sheer weight of history that the city supports.
There are of course the city's classical features, most
visibly the Colosseum, and the Forum and Palatine Hill;
but from here there's an almost uninterrupted sequence
of monuments - from early Christian basilicas,
Romanesque churches, Renaissance palaces, right up to
the fountains and churches of the Baroque period, which
perhaps more than any other era has determined the look
of the city today.
As for Lombardy's people, from the cossetted residents
of the provincial towns to Milan's workaholics, they
hardly fit the popular image of Italians. In fact, they
don't have much time for a substantial proportion of
their compatriots: urban northerners are rather
dismissive of the south, derisive of Rome and
historically all too ready to exploit the so-called
terroni (literally earth-people) - a highly insulting
term for southern Italians who leave their
poverty-stricken villages to find work in the north.
Milan, a natural gateway to the region, and where you
may well arrive, dominates the plain that forms the
southern part of Lombardy. The towns across here - Pavia,
Cremona, Mantua - flourished during the Middle Ages and
Renaissance, and retain their historical character
today, albeit encircled by burgeoning suburbs. To the
north, Lombardy is quite different, the lakes and low
mountains of the edge of the Alps sheltering fewer
historic towns, though Bergamo and Brescia are notable
exceptions. This has long been popular tourist
territory, particularly around the lakes of Maggiore,
Como and Garda, and wealthy Italian holiday-makers and
day-trippers are much in evidence. Although the western
shore of Lago Maggiore and the eastern and northern
shores of Lago di Garda are, strictly speaking, in
Piemonte, Veneto and Trentino respectively, the lakes
region and all its resorts are all covered in this
section.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT
www.italiamia.com
Back to Regions |
|
