Lake iseo – known to the Romans as Sebinus lacus – is shared by two important Lombard provinces: Bergamo and Brescia. The Bergamo side is the western bank that drops sharply down into the waters of the lake, offering spectacular landscapes that can be admired from the provincial road, carved out of and laid directly in the rocks. Brescia claims the eastern side. Here, the banks are gentle and rolling from Iseo to Marone after which they crash into the rocks of the Corna dei Trentapassi, which is bathed by the lake water. Located at the outlet of the Valle Camonica, it represents an important trade passage to the province of Trento, the city of Bolzano and from here on into Central Europe. For thousands of years, the lake has been a mandatory route for northerners trying to reach the highlands. Up until the last century, boats ferried men and goods from south to north across the lake. These were typically large square-veiled boats, often up to 40 meters long, which set sail from the ports of Iseo and Sarnico, the capital cities of the lower lake region, toward Lovere and Pisogne. They sailed up the Sebino during the day, using the Ora and would depart again by nightfall, offering the sails to the stern speed of the Vet.
It was only in 1850 that the coastal road was finally opened up – carved out of the rock and today no longer in use – between Marone and Pisogne. The grand opening of the western road between Tavernola and Castro would have to wait until the First World War. But at that time, the rail line between Iseo and Pisogne was operational, work of the Alta engineering corps that definitively opened up the way from Iseo toward the Valley. The railroad tracks reached the communities of the lower lake by 1885, but for the 21 kilometres that connected Iseo to Pisogne to open, local residents had to wait another three decades, until 8 July 1907. Today, communication between Iseo and Pisogne and between Sarnico and Lovere are ensured by smooth roads, long stretches of which run through tunnels blasted into the heart of the mountain. But the railroads are still alive and well and nature lovers can still take a bicycle or their own two feet and use the old road dominated by the rocky cliffs overlooking the lake.
MAN’S HANDIWORK
Colonized from time immemorial (the first communities date back to the Stone Age), the lake has always represented an important resource for the men who have populated its banks. Agriculture, practiced in the hill areas, has produced superior quality fruits and vegetables thanks to the mildness of the climate. We will suffice to name only grapes and the olives, without going into Count Covi’s historic citron orchards in Predore (which were destroyed by a fire in the 19th century) and the other citrus plantations cultivated by the Franciscans on the Island of San Paolo. Still today, the olive oils produced on Lake Iseo are some of the most prized in Italy. But the quintessential resource around these parts has been for centuries and has remained, fishing. A local historian remembers that in 1935, more than 300 families earned their living as fishermen. A wide variety of fish make their home in the lake – sardines, perch, whitefish, pike, trout, tench and small salmon – and fishing has spurred development of an unusual industry, closely related to fishing: fabrication of fishing nets. Of the economic resources, we can hardly neglect to mention trade, especially important for the port towns such as Iseo, Lovere, Pisogne and Sarnico. An extraordinarily important business from an economic perspective, but which has also provided the lake population the opportunity to broaden its cultural perspectives.
TOURISM
Upon their arrival on the banks of Lake Sebino, Elisabeth Mary Montagu in the 1700s and later Ida Duringsfeld in the following century, were thunderstruck by the beauty of the area and wrote of their enrapture, asking themselves how so much charm and beauty could have been kept secret from foreigners for so long. Today, this is still a topical question. Nordic and extraordinary in spring time, cool and breezy in the summer, melancholy and moving in the fall and winter, Lake Lake iseo remains a yet-undiscovered holiday destination. A treasure for the few (which still means tens of thousands of visitors each year) who come here and, more often than not, return. A pity for those who decide to take other routes and end up missing out on one of the most beautiful locations in Northern Italy. In the recent years, visitor service providers on the Bergamo and Brescia banks, assisted by their municipal governments and the tourist promotion agencies, have invested significant resources into offering tourists high quality facilities and are now able to meet every need. The visitor is hard pushed to find a town on the Sebino that does not offer top-quality hotel accommodations and clean campgrounds in charming surroundings in addition to restaurants, recreational facilities and sports. An all-inclusive offer that brings together comfort and natural beauty, a feeling of luxury with accessibility for all visitors, even the possibility – in the space of a few dozen kilometres – to make interesting visits to Milan, Bergamo, Brescia and Venice.
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