Tirano

     Tirano was our next stopping point. It's about two hours east of Colico and Lake Como and only a mile from the Swiss border. It's a quiet town without a great history but is known for a couple of things. One is that it is the departure point for the Red Train, which is what the locals call the Bernina Express. The Red Train travels to Switzerland. We took it and had a fantastic day up in the Swiss Alps.

     At the end of one day, we hiked up the side of a mountain to a small church. From there, we had the view below of the town of Tirano. If you look in the lower right corner, you can see a tree-lined street. That's the main street and our hotel was right near the far end of the trees.

     Our hotel, Hotel Centrale Tirano, is on the left in the photo below. The following photo is just looking to the right of the photo below. There you can see St. Martin's Church, built in the 1300's.

     Tirano, like I suppose all Italian villages, is a mix of the very old through the very new.

     The other thing that Tirano seems famous for is the Basilica and Sanctuary of Madonna di Tirano. We were told that it stands where the Madonna appeared to a farmer, Mario Omodei, of Tirano, in 1504. The 16th century sanctuary was impressive, as was the 17th century organ with its 2,200 pipes. We didn't get to hear it but I can imagine...  The basilica stands at the other end of the tree-lined street from our hotel.

     We walked around Tirano and enjoyed their food, coffee, and gelato. This was a stop in a meat market for some Bresaola, a thin-sliced, dark red, low-fat meat that originated in the Italian Alps.