Chiavenna

The ancient Roman “Clavenna”, meeting-point of the roads to the Spluga and Maloja Passes, has an old town centre rich in magnificent palaces and artistic treasures such as the collegiate church of San Lorenzo, which holds the Treasure Museum and the “Peace”, and the Mill of Bottonera. In the vicinity the Vertemate Palace, a magnificent house of the Renaissance.
Surrounded by high mountaintops and immersed in an intact and lush nature it offers a genuine cooking rich in tradition that can be tasted in the several restaurants and crotti: these are natural hollows formed by huge rocks leaning against one another which came off the sides of the mountain in prehistoric times. A draught called “sorel” blows between the clefts of these rocks. It keeps an even temperature during all the year round and it makes them ideal places for the maturing of cheeses, salami and cold meat and the ageing of wine. The crotti, often equipped with stone benches and tables outside and a small hall inside, are for the people from Chiavenna meeting and traditional points.
The symbols of the gastronomical tradition are the following: the “brisaola”, already well-known in Valchiavenna in 1456, and the goat meat (“violino”), which still today are home-produced following the traditional recipe; the cheeses produced at the dairy or on the mountain pastures which give unique scents and savours to many local recipes; the wines of the Valtellina tradition with a strong, sophisticated and top quality taste; the sweets, the biscuits of Chiavenna, simple and genuine, the fioretto cake, which is named after the crumbled baldmoney flowers, the “biscotìn de Próst” according to the old and secret recipe.