Parco di Villa Carcano Visit the Parco di Villa Carcano
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 - Parco di Villa Carcano
The visit
The park is open for individual visits only on September, 12 2018 From 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.
 
Otherwise, the park is open all year round upon reservation (by mail/email), for organized groups, as well as for educational activities.
The visit can take  from one to three hours, depending on pace, percourse and interest in the  different botanical, historical and environmenta aspects.
  
Recommended percourse.
The park was created in its final configuration in 1808 - 1810 and owes its design to the Austrian architect Leopold Pollack, who had designed the villa for the family Carcano, that still owns the estate.
Unable to complete the project because of the period  intense international turmoil (at the turn of the XVIII century, first Austrian rule, then French rule, then Austrian again, all in a few years), the owners decided pragmatically to devote to garden and park landscape only  20 hectares of green (originally there were 40) and to allocate the remaining part to agricultural activities
The presence of a small lake and several  important springs  made possible the creation of irrigated meadows on slopes, fish ponds, and allowed in in the flat area cultivation of water demanding crops.
 From the parterre surrounding the house, lying on the hill, the view on the lawn sloping slides and focuses on the  Lake Alserio, with the Grigne and Resegone mountains in the background. The landscape is framed by tall trees artfully arranged according to the dictates of the romantic garden. Among the most noteworthy tree specimens in this area there are Ginkgo biloba and horse chestnut, and then tuje, yews, cedars. Entering the park you have great masses of Aucuba japonica, a spectacular copper beech, beautiful Abies nordmanniana more than 25 meters high, magnolia, century old chestnuts.

An avenue of hornbeams leads to a lake, another element typically romantic, with two islands and a cliff under which was created a  tunnel, once navigable. Up to first half of the twentieth century the lake was used to produce ice, which was stored in two large ice-houses,  sold in the summer and given as charity. Today the lake is naturalized and is home to wildlife.
The surprises do not end at Villa Carcano Park: in deep vegetation can be found the remains of the Lazzaretto, sort of hospital during the sisteenth century plague, several buildings like anold ice house or "coffee kiosk" dating to the early 19th century, frescoed stables and an almost circular barn for the maneuvers of the coaches.

 - Parco di Villa Carcano

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