Lake Como



Posted: Friday, November 20, 2009

by
http://www.upon-bamboo-fly-fishing-rods-and-reels.com

I was born in Como and grew up just a few miles from it, at the footstep of the hill separating the Swiss Confederation and Italy. I am Italian, and Swiss and part of the two worlds. My whole family went to Switzerland for a better life in 1967. Those days it was the rule. Many Italians went away for a better paid job.

Today, Como has become popular because of George Clooney who bought a house just a few miles from where I live but whom nobody really see except through the usual gossip magazines and the paparazzi pictures portraying him on a byke or wearing black sunglasses.

Como is on a lake. Lake Como or "lago di Como" or just "Lario" for the more educated or "lagh de Comm" for those speaking the local dialect which I don't but understand fully (dialect is disappearing among the younger generations, but this is more for a scholarly topic) . I don't know why it is named "Lario" but I know that with his 460m of depth it is the fifth deepest lake in Europe. They say it is a glacial lake but because I am a geologist I doubt it very much. I know that in the Messinian (about 7 Mio years ago), the Mediterranean sea dried up to the extent that salt planes were formed at its bottom. This meant for rivers that they had to cut through a lot more into the valleys to reach the sea. So logically, canyons were created and then refilled when the sea level gradually recovered. And in fact, lake Como has a long, narrow and, deep (you see?) bathymetry. Just like a canyon. I have never seen glaciers creating V-shape lakes or valleys...

Anyhow, this lake, we were saying, is very famous for us Italians because the most famous work in 19th Century Italian literature, the "Promessi sposi" by Alessandro Manzoni (which the English version has it as "The bethroted") begins with the description of this beautiful lake: "Quel ramo del lago di Como, che volge a mezzogiorno, tra due catene non interrotte di monti..." (" That branch of the lake of Como, which extends towards the south, is enclosed by two unbroken chains of mountains..." well, this very beginning is probably the most read text in Italian high schools that I know. With the consequence that this is also the most hated text by Italian pupils. Such an unjustice! I picked it up a decade after I finished my school and I could not stop reading it. It's a marvellous love story full of action and feeling over the backgroung of 17th Century Italy, when Italy did not exist as a state yet and an outbreak of plague afflicted Milan and the whole of Europe.

Como was a Roman military outpost and as such it was built in the usual Roman fashion: a square area with perpendicular streets and a main central road. Well, guess what, walking in today's city centre you notice...straight perpendicular streets event now!

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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)
» left by Mark Parsec
 2 years 77 days ago.
285 fans.
Hi Alessandro,
 
Thanks for submitting this article. Welcome to SearchWarp!
 
Mark
» left by Nenita Wells
 2 years 74 days ago.
302 fans.
Hi Alessandro. Wow, very picturesque, from your description, I could see it. Thank you for sharing this to us. It is a well-written and interesting piece. Ciao. ~Nenita~
» left by Nenita Wells 2 years 74 days ago.
302 fans.
Welcome to the Searchwarp Community, Alessandro. I am looking forward to reading more of your articles. ~Nenita~
» left by Mark Neil
 2 years 73 days ago.
10 fans. Follow Mark Neil on twitter!
Welcome to SearchWarp Writer community. Nice article. I am looking forward to read more from you
» left by Marijo Phelps
 2 years 71 days ago.
139 fans.
I am chuckling because there is a Lake Como in Minnesota near where I grew up - thanks for writing this about another Lake Como and Welcome to Searchwarp! Marijo
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