The best walks and hikes around Pozzuolo Martesana

The geometric layout and architectural hierarchy of the town reflect the organization of the factory itself: Il Cotonificio: imposing complex in Lombard Romanesque style with its iconic saw-tooth roofed sheds. Worker houses: semi-detached houses surrounded by a garden and a vegetable patch to ensure the sustenance and hygiene of the working family. Managers' villas: eclectic and stately homes, located in isolated areas and surrounded by greenery. Villa-Castello: the sumptuous feudal summer residence of the Crespi family in neo-Gothic style. Cemetery and Mausoleum: a monumental cemetery dominated by the enormous pyramid of the Crespi family, which seems to symbolically embrace the workers' tombs arranged in orderly rows. Collective services: the school (where everything was provided free of charge by the company), the church (exact copy of the Sanctuary of Busto Arsizio), the public washhouse, the hospital, and the workers' club.

The Locks of Bellinzago Lombardo are an important historical hydraulic engineering work located along the course of the Naviglio della Martesana. They represent one of the best-known stopping and points of interest for cyclists and hikers who frequent the canal bank. These historical hydraulic systems (locks or sluices) originally served to regulate the flow of water and allow commercial navigation between the Adda and Milan.

In the village of Crespi d’Adda, there is a unique building. It is the so-called Castello villa. Together with the chimneys, the Castello villa of Crespi d’Adda is the most striking building in the entire workers' village, because it towers over the plain even from kilometers away. Its impressiveness is justified by the role it plays: being the calling card of the entire workers' village of Crespi d’Adda.

The industrial village of Crespi d'Adda, located in the municipality of Capriate San Gervasio (Bergamo), is the best-preserved workers' village in Southern Europe. Founded in 1878 by the textile entrepreneur Cristoforo Benigno Crespi, it represents an exceptional example of an ideal "company town" and, since 1995, has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Unlike many industrial archaeology sites, Crespi d'Adda is a living and still inhabited site, mainly by the descendants of the original workers.

Villa Crespi in Crespi d'Adda (a hamlet of Capriate San Gervasio, Bergamo), also known simply as the Castle, was the lavish manor house of the Crespi family within the famous workers' village, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Naviglio della Martesana, definitively completed in 1496 under the guidance of Ludovico il Moro, flows from Trezzo sull’Adda to Milan for a total length of 38 km. The route runs alongside the ancient Roman road (the current SS 11 padana superiore) which crossed the Adda with two branches: at Vaprio and Cassano. Irrigation of the land located above the spring belt was for a long time the predominant use of the canal, so much so that initially navigation was limited to two days a week; concurrently with the improvement of the agricultural structure thanks to irrigation, a notable flourishing of stately villas occurred in the Baroque era, intended to enjoy the convenience of travel on water and to control owned lands.

Naviglio della Martesana is perhaps the least known of the ancient artificial canals connecting Milan to the great Lombard rivers. It originates from the Adda in Concesa, a hamlet of Trezzo d’Adda, crosses the Martesana sub-region, northeast of the provincial capital, and once in the city, it plunges underground beneath Via Melchiorre Gioia, at the height of Cassina de’ Pomm. It measures approximately 38 km in length, with a width varying from 9 to 18 meters. However, once upon a time, the Naviglio della Martesana continued in the open air all the way to the center, where a lock system centered on the Conca dell’Incoronata connected it to the short Naviglio di S. Marco and the urban network of the Navigli. The lock was inaugurated in 1496, utilizing lock gates designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The canal had been opened in 1471, under Francesco Sforza. By connecting it to the other Navigli, Leonardo laid the foundations for realizing a dream of the Sforzas: to travel by water from the Ticino, and therefore from Lake Maggiore, all the way to the Adda.

The Naviglio della Martesana, initially known as Naviglio Piccolo, is one of the Milanese canals that connects Milan with the course of the Adda river through the municipalities of Martesana. Commissioned in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, it was used for irrigating the countryside but also represented the ambitious project of connecting Milan with Lake Como and thus with the Alps and Ticino. The Naviglio della Martesana is a place rich in history and beauty, a heritage for everyone that, however, today is still little known and protected. Along the Naviglio runs a rather busy cycle path, which allows you to admire the landscape and cultural beauties, such as the rich flora, fauna, or the numerous historic villas, including the Renaissance Villa Melzi d’Eril in Vaprio d’Adda.