Meride: nature, sport, palaeontolog

Wisely, it has managed to stay just as it was two centuries ago – and because of this was even a subject of study for many universities. Meride looks almost like it is of another world: once you cross the little bridge over the stream, you will enter a world where it is nature who holds the upper hand.

A paradise for cyclists, hikers, silence lovers, with its paleontological sites, its trails through nature, its old mines and war trenches, and those great viewpoints over the Alps and the lake.

Opposite the Locanda you will find the Museo dei Fossili (Museum of Fossils), the most important centre for the collection of plants and animals deriving from the exceptional deposits of Mount San Giorgio, now a Unesco World Heritage Site. Here the tale of the region’s original subtropical areas, from over 240 million years ago when the land was a super-continent named Pangea and the great sea was named Tetide.

The hamlet has been home to many writers and artists, including famous sculptors, painters and plaster-workers, who then set off into the world from St Petersburg to Rome, to create works for some of the great masters of their time, such as Bernini and Borromini. The village remains today a place that attracts people interested in art, in creativity, in philosophy.