A unique opportunity to listen to the stories of the architecture and traditions of a valley on the border of Varese, opening the doors of places often closed to the public, entering churches and walking through the streets of historic centers in search of unexpected views together with FAI volunteers .

Here are the open places in the province of Varese:

VILLA DELLA PORTA BOZZOLO
In the quiet Valcuvia, a few kilometres from Varese and Lake Maggiore, stands the 16th-century country residence of the Della Porta family, wealthy local landowners with humble origins and ambitions of nobility. A residence with an agricultural soul with rustic cottages, a wine press and wine cellar and a silkworm spinning mill.

MONASTERY OF TORBA
The Monastery of Torba is located in Gornate Olona, in the province of Varese. Completely immersed in the valley of the Olona River, it stands on the slopes of the hill on which the Castelseprio archaeological park is located.

MACCHI HOUSE AND EMPORIUM
Casa Macchi is a pretty little provincial building that stands in the shadow of the church bell tower of a quiet village a few kilometres from Varese, Morazzone

TOWER OF VELATE
A fascinating and conspicuous ruin of the pre-Alpine defensive boundary in the Middle Ages, the tower rises five storeys high to testify to a fortified site of strategic importance, occupied since the Longobard era.

VILLA AND PANZA COLLECTION
Immersed in a park of more than 33,000 square metres from which one can enjoy the view of the Monte Rosa massif and the city of Varese below, Villa e Collezione Panza stands atop one of the hills surrounding the city of Varese, known as Colle di Biumo.

FORMER SONNINO ROOFING FACTORY
The 'Ex Sonnino' is an abandoned industrial complex located in Besozzo not far from the historic centre, on the Bardello river, which since the 16th century has fed the machinery of the factory, decommissioned in 1983. Recently, the municipality of Besozzo has implemented green redevelopment and implementation works to restore the premises, where cultural events are often held. Across the river is a pleasant public park from which to admire the complex.

ENAIP LOMBARDY VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTRE
Planned starting in 1955, when the district was still sparsely urbanised, the school stands on land adjacent to the Ina-Casa residential lots, which had recently been built at the time, and near the parish church built at the same time. The construction of the school complex was part of a larger urban planning project that aimed to provide the neighbourhood with all the main services and to give life to an orderly urban development able to make up for the environmental desolation that was rampant at the time.

SANT'ANNA VILLAGE
Situated on the border with Cassano Magnago, the village of Sant'Anna stands on the northern outskirts of Busto Arsizio, an area that is now urbanised although characterised by the presence of large green areas for agriculture. In 1957, the land on which the new neighbourhood would rise the following year was located in the open countryside, between the railway and the road to Cassano, which is why the place was called Strà Cassano.

ISIS C. FACCHINETTI
The building that housed the Istituto Tecnico Industriale e Istituto Professionale di Stato per l'Industria e l'Artigianato, today I.S.I.S. "Cipriano Facchinetti", was located in a peripheral area of the municipality of Castellanza. This area, located to the east of Busto Arsizio, was identified by Enrico Castiglioni as a possible new expansion pole for the city, capable of housing all collective, sports and school facilities. The institute was in fact built adjacent to the Mostra del Tessile complex, also designed by Castiglioni, and now unfortunately demolished.

CONTINI PARK
Bordering the built-up area of Besozzo Superiore, the oldest part of the town still rich in palaces, courtyards and gardens, is the large 19th-century English-style park of Palazzo Contini, accessed via a small bridge directly from the courtyard, passing over the municipal road.

COURTYARD PALAZZO BESOZZI ADAMOLI
The reading of the town that one acquires as one ascends to the Besozzo Castle area leads one to appreciate the landscape and the historical transformations it has undergone: the medieval tower, slightly set back, speaks of the strategic importance of the hillock, while the Renaissance palaces tell of the appreciation of the landscape by the lords who surrounded their residences with extensive and well-kept parks.

PALAZZO BESOZZI MAGGI
In the ancient core of Upper Besozzo, the Town Hall (formerly Palazzo Besozzi-Maggi) is located at the confluence of Via Mazzini (formerly Contrada Nuova) and Via Domenico Adamoli, which descends towards Lower Besozzo, amidst a sequence of buildings winding in a semicircle along the street, erected between the 15th and 18th centuries. The palace was built at the end of the 16th century by a branch of the Besozzi family.

SS NAZARO E CELSO PARISH CHURCH
The church dedicated to Saints Nazaro and Celso, located in the small centre of Prospiano, a hamlet of the municipality of Gorla Minore in the Olona Valley, stands in a densely populated area characterised mainly by detached houses. The religious building was planned from the mid-1960s, a period when the hamlet was already fairly urbanised, which is why it had to adapt to the space then available. A long and narrow plot of land was allocated to the new church, the morphology of which influenced the elongated development of the building.

VILLA DURINI
The Villa Magna of Gorla Minore is located in the centre of the town behind the morainic buttress where the Olona river flows. Built in the 1500s by a wealthy Milanese family, the Magni, it represents the typical country home of a well-off family of the time, at the centre of a rural and agricultural environment. In the following centuries it was enlarged and modified together with the park of about 19,000 square metres, which today is rich in beeches and cedars that are now centuries old.

ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO STATALE G. PARINI
Situated in the municipality of Gorla Minore, on the left bank of the Olona Valley where the river of the same name turns the last bend, the narrowest 'gorla', the school stands within the 17th century park of Villa Durini. The Durini family, who succeeded the Terzaghi family, chose the eastern shore of Gorla Minore as their home, just above the bend in the river where the air is healthy and the view opens up towards the mountains. The long rectilinear body of the school located in the park, which widens out behind the villa and descends steeply towards the river, was placed by architect Castiglioni on the west side.

MISSONI ARCHIVE
The Missoni Archive is located in Albusciago, a small hamlet of Sumirago (VA), not far from the historic headquarters of the Missoni company. Situated on a hill immersed in the green countryside, and amidst the colours of nature that have always been a source of inspiration for Missoni, it boasts a marvellous view of Monte Rosa, so dear to Rosita.

Online booking is recommended, places are limited.

How to participate in the event will be available on the website of  Fondo Ambiente Italiano.