A poet gave a name to the gorge. The Devil now wants his house back.
“Welcome, stranger. I am Sigismondo Boldoni, poet and physician of Bellano. My fellow citizens dedicated a monument to me in 1898, but I still prefer the pen.”Sigismondo Boldoni
What the narrator asks you. The answer, and the true fact behind it, is for you to find on the spot.
For centuries Bellano was reached from the lake. You arrive by train, and I do not complain: at least the locomotive does not roll. Welcome, stranger. This is the first sheet of my Register.
At the entrance of the gorge a small tower clings to a boulder, and nobody can explain it. For centuries it has given work to rumours: licentious feasts, rites, treasures. I, as a physician, assure you: rumours cure better than facts, but they do not replace them.
One stop north of Bellano, in Dervio, a Romanesque bell tower ends in a spire so sharp it looks like a pencil. Who wanted it is unknown. I only know the church is already mentioned in the year 814.
Two hundred and fifty steps, or a little more, and the river is already over. Leonardo called it Fiumelaccio and was fascinated. It appears and disappears: go and see whether it is there today.