The Comabbio lake and that of Varese are next to each other. It is a moment by bike, up and down for a cycle path, which between asphalt and dirt road turns around and is intertwined for about fifty kilometers. Which must be pedaled adagio, calmly, without cardio, without looking at the watt, without agonistic pretensions because for that, a little higher and often at the side, there is the way where the professionals run the three valleys. But if life requires choices so it is also going by bike. And then if you decide to caress the lake from the shore after bank, Lido after Lido, a village after village then the cycle path is the perfect way.
Making tourism or hiking on bike must be a slow pedaling With its silent and patient flow, with unexpected deviations, with the maps that often get lost, with unexpected stops because you meet a village, a restaurant, a glimpse that deserves a photo. With the sun, with the rain, with the unexpected because it happens to pierce and repair, to dirty their hands of fat, to have to deal with some bolt that is attached, to have to put their hand to bruv and screwdriver.
The cycle of Lake Comabbio are thirteen kilometers, Perhaps fourteen, which lead from Varano Borghi to Corgeno di Vergiate to Mercallo between sinuous roads, natural environments and parks, water lilies, small beaches and a walkway suspended on the water of almost a kilometer that combines the banks of Comabbio with those of Terni. It is pleasant to pedal above, a beautiful emotion that brings even more closer to the waters of a pelvis of glacial origin that in past centuries seems to be one with the Lake Monate a few kilometers further. In the summer it is a real oasis, in winter a little less because the low depth as well as the low spare part of the waters favor the formation of a often layer of ice that in ancient times was collected by the place fishermen and brought to the icing for the conservation of fish and other foodstuffs.
The “jazzer”, so they call them in dialect the icebox are the real “gem” of Lake Comabbio And the tour is worth just to go and see it. They are two, perfectly preserved and restored, and tell a fascinating story of the past centuries. Built entirely of stone in the 1700s, about ten meters deep, and their function was to keep the ice and fish caught in the waters of Varese, Comabbio and Monate. In fact, they came from time to time filled with slabs that detached themselves from the winter lake by the fishermen who cut them with the dark, they harmonious them with hooks and dragged them into their boats where they were wrapped in blankets to transport them inside the icebox, where the ice was even preserved for a whole year. Past stories, of distant centuries, which with a little patience is easy to find. Especially on a bike when the pedaling forgets of everyday haste …