The best walks and hikes around Ferno

The unique name "Panperduto" derives mainly from the local dialect and ancient stories related to river navigation before the construction of the dam. In the past, commercial barges carrying goods or stones often collided with the rapids and rocky riverbeds of this stretch of the river, ending up capsizing and losing their entire cargo. This meant the loss of the entire day's work and the earnings needed to buy food, hence the saying "we lost the bread" (hence Panperduto).

La Diga del Panperduto (or rather, the Dighe del Panperduto) is one of Lombardy's most important and fascinating hydraulic junctions, located on the Ticino river in the municipality of Somma Lombardo, in the province of Varese. This monumental complex of hydraulic engineering dates back to the late 19th century (inaugurated in 1884) and mainly serves to divert the waters of the Ticino to feed two fundamental artificial canals: Villoresi Canal: used for irrigation purposes, guaranteeing water for over 100,000 hectares of agricultural land in the Po Valley. Industrial Canal: fundamental for the production of hydroelectric energy through various power plants in the area.

The Villoresi Canal flows north of Milan for 86 km. It originates from the Panperduto Dams on the Ticino River and continues to the Adda River, where it flows near Cassano d’Adda, in the Groppello area. From there, its waters are channeled, as needed, into the Adda or the Naviglio Martesana via a special structure. Along its course, the canal meets several natural watercourses – the Lambro, Olona, and Seveso among the best known – with which water exchange can occur, if necessary. The network, which branches off from the main canal like capillaries of a system that distributes water to the most remote areas, consists of 22 diversion canals, with a total length of 120 km, and 270 branch canals, winding for over 800 km. There are also collector canals – over 30 km in total length – which receive water not absorbed by the land during irrigation and/or collect rainwater. Also noteworthy is the system's water flow: the total water volume indeed exceeds, on average, 500 million m3 per year. Recently, navigation has also been rediscovered on the Villoresi; the canal's waters also feed 4 hydroelectric plants in the Municipality of Monza.

the view is always fascinating!

It was a late 19th-century engineer, Eugenio Villoresi, son of the director of the gardens of Villa Reale in Monza, who envisioned extending the irrigation of the fields upstream from this imaginary line. He therefore designed a long canal connecting Lake Maggiore to the Adda River, using its waters to distribute, for a fee, to all the fields between the canal and the fountain line. Obtaining the government concession and securing the project's financing was certainly no easy feat; Villoresi did not see its completion, which took place in 1890, 11 years after his death.

interesting open-air exhibition on the agricultural equipment of the area from the early twentieth century

Circular tour

Panoramic point