Four trips well away from the ring roads

Lombardy has more Unesco sites than any other Italian region, and almost none of them are where you would expect. These four trips start from a campsite on the lakes and are back the same day.

The Lombards

Between Varese and the Ticino stands the complex of Castelseprio and Torba: a tower, a monastery and a church with eighth-century frescoes, in the middle of the wood. It is part of the Unesco Lombard site together with Brescia, where the monastery of Santa Giulia is one of the finest museums in northern Italy. Both can be done in a day from Lake Maggiore.

Garda and its castles

On the Brescia shore the coast road takes in Sirmione with its Scaliger fortress and the grottoes of Catullus, Desenzano with its Roman villa, Salo with the longest lakeside promenade on Garda, and the Vittoriale at Gardone. You can drive it or take the boat, and the boat is better: in summer the main road is saturated.

The towns of the plain

Mantua and Sabbioneta form a single Unesco site: the first is a city of water with the Ducal Palace and the Camera degli Sposi, the second an ideal city of the sixteenth century built all at once. Cremona has the Torrazzo, the tallest brick bell tower in Europe, and the violin makers' workshops. Pavia has the Certosa. All are less than two hours from the lakes.

Up into the Valtellina

From Sondrio you climb to Bormio and cross the Stelvio, which with its forty-eight hairpins is the highest surfaced road in Italy: it opens from June to October. Those who would rather not go that high can stop at the terraced vineyards above Tirano, another Unesco landscape.